Contact Page: What to Include and How to Lay It Out

What a contact page is for

A contact page is where a ready visitor decides to get in touch. This guide covers what to put on it, how to choose between a form, an email address and a phone number, and how to keep spam out.

A good contact page gives visitors every way to reach you in one place: a short form, an email address, a phone number if you take calls, your hours with a time zone, and an address if customers visit. It says what happens after they write, loads quickly on a phone and has spam controls that do not block real people.

A contact page is the page visitors open once they have decided to get in touch, so its only job is to make that step easy. Someone who arrives here has usually read something else first. Do not repeat the sales pitch. Show that you are a real business, offer the routes people prefer and say what happens next.

Link to it from the main menu and the footer, usually as the last menu item, as the guide to website navigation and menus explains. Link to it from pages where a visitor is likely to be ready too: service pages, quote pages and the end of articles.

What to put on a contact page

Include what a visitor needs to reach you and to decide if you are the right business. Start with the table and remove whatever does not apply to you.

Should I put a form or an email address?

Offer both unless you have a reason not to. They suit different people. A form collects what you need in a set order, so your reply can begin with the details in hand. An email address suits people who want a copy in their own mailbox, want to attach a file or dislike forms. A phone number helps someone with an urgent problem.

Each route has a cost. A form can fail without warning, it attracts spam, and the visitor has to trust that the message arrived. A published email address is collected by automated programs and soon receives junk. The address should still be there, because some visitors will not use a form. Use an address on your own domain rather than a personal mailbox. It looks more credible, and it stays with the business when staff change.

If you only want one route, choose by how your customers behave. A business that quotes for jobs usually needs a form with a few questions. A shop mostly needs an order help route. A professional who gets a few enquiries a week may do well with an address and a phone number.

How to lay out the contact page

Put the quickest route near the top and the detail below it. On a phone, the form or the tap-to-call button should be visible without much scrolling, and the text should be readable without zooming. Keep the page to one main column: a short heading, one line of introduction, the form, then the other details. Two columns work on a wide screen as long as they stack in a sensible order on a phone.

Use the heading "Contact" or "Contact us", the word visitors look for, and include your business name in the page title. Avoid sliders, auto-playing video and large banners. Anything that slows the page works against someone who is about to enquire.

Maps, chat widgets and other extras

Embedded maps, chat tools and booking widgets load code from other servers, and each adds weight. If the page feels slow, look at them first, using the steps in the guide to checking and improving website speed. A written address with a link that opens the map is lighter than an embedded map and does the same job for most visitors. If you do embed a map, keep the address as text beside it.

Load a chat widget only on pages where it helps, and check on a phone that it does not cover the form or the send button.

Make the contact form easy to use for everyone

Label each field with visible text, mark required fields clearly and make sure error messages say what to fix. Do not let placeholder text stand in for the label, a point the W3C's forms tutorial explains.

Try the page with the keyboard alone. Every field and button should be reachable, and the focus marker should be visible. If you use a puzzle to stop robots, offer another route in, such as an email address or a phone number, for the people who cannot complete it. The guide to website forms covers labels, errors and mobile layout in detail.

How to reduce spam on a contact form

No single measure stops all spam, so combine a few light ones. Start with the checks that real visitors never notice.

• A honeypot is an extra field that people cannot see but automated programs fill in. Reject any submission where it has a value. Hide it from screen readers as well as from sight, so it does not confuse people who use assistive technology.
• A minimum time check rejects forms that arrive faster than a person could fill them in.
• Server-side validation checks every field on the server, limits the length of the message and refuses content that looks like injected code. Checks in the browser alone can be bypassed.
• Rate limiting slows or blocks a source that submits many times in a short period.
• Content rules hold messages with many links, or in a language you do not serve, for review instead of deleting them.
• A spam-filtering service may be offered by your developer or form plugin. Find out what data it sends elsewhere, and mention it in your privacy notice if it sends any.

A puzzle test, usually called a CAPTCHA, belongs at the end of the list, not the start. The W3C's note on the inaccessibility of CAPTCHA explains that puzzles which depend on seeing, hearing or solving a task exclude many people with disabilities, and it suggests alternatives such as two-step verification. If you do use one, test it with a keyboard and keep email or phone as another way in.

Test the result by sending a real message from a phone afterwards. Spam controls that block genuine enquiries can cost you real customers. Keep the messages your filter held back for a short period and read them now and then. The website security checklist covers the wider protection of forms and logins.

Check that messages actually arrive

The most damaging contact page fault is a form that looks fine and delivers nothing. Notification emails sent from a web server can be filtered as junk, especially when the sending address is not set up properly for your domain. Ask your developer to send form notifications from an address on your domain that is authorised to send, and to store a copy of every submission where it can be checked, so that a failed email does not lose an enquiry.

Then test it regularly. Send a message from a phone on mobile data and confirm that it reaches an inbox someone actually monitors, not one that belonged to a colleague who has left. Check too that the visitor sees a clear confirmation after sending.

Different businesses need different contact pages

What to leave off a contact page

Leave off anything you cannot keep up. A phone number that nobody answers, a social channel nobody checks, an old address and out-of-date hours each cost trust. Do not ask for more detail than you need to reply, and do not hide the contact route behind a login or a pop-up. Avoid promising a reply within a set time unless your team can meet it every time.

Keep the contact page current

Review the page whenever your hours, staff, address or phone number change, and at least once a year. Check that the links still work, that the form still sends and that the page reads well on a phone. If you add a service or start working in a new region, update the page the same day.

If the form or its notifications keep failing, a developer can repair them. The website development service page describes the websites Liftup builds.

Questions and answers

What should a contact page include?

A contact page should include a short form, an email address, a phone number if you take calls, your hours with a time zone and an address if customers visit. Add a line saying what happens after someone writes, and a short privacy notice near the send button. Leave off any route that nobody checks.

Should I put a form or an email address?

Offer both unless you have a reason not to. A form collects details in a set order and keeps your address out of plain view, while an email address suits people who want to attach a file or keep a copy. If you can only offer one, choose by how your customers prefer to get in touch.

How do I reduce spam on a contact form?

Combine light checks that real visitors do not notice, such as a hidden honeypot field, a minimum time check, server-side validation and rate limiting. Use a puzzle test only as a last resort, because it shuts out some people. Afterwards, send a real test message to confirm that genuine enquiries still arrive.

Should a contact page have a map?

Only if customers visit you. A written address with a link that opens a map is lighter and just as useful. An embedded map loads code from another site, which can slow the page and take up space on a phone. If you embed one, keep the address as text beside it.

Should I put my phone number on the contact page?

If you take calls, yes. Make it a tap-to-call link, add the country code if you serve people in other countries and state the hours with the time zone. If nobody answers the phone, leave the number off instead of giving visitors one that rings out.

How often should I test my contact form?

Test it regularly, for example once a month, and after any change to the site, hosting or email settings. Send a message from a phone, confirm that it reaches an inbox someone monitors and check that the visitor sees a confirmation. Also look in the spam folder for genuine enquiries that were filtered.