Web forms are great for businesses because they allow them to collect and manage information from their website visitors in an easy and efficient way. A well-constructed web form can help businesses achieve the following:
- Generating leads and contacts
- Conducting market research and user feedback to improve products or services.
- Providing e-commerce opportunities to sell products or services online.
- Automating workflows and processes by routing data to the appropriate person or system.
- Enhancing user experience and engagement by creating interactive and dynamic web pages.
So how does one go about building an effective web form? We'd obviously recommend Act! users implement tools like Link2forms, but beyond that, there are some common tips and best practices that can help people create more effective web forms; here's a short list of our favorites:
- Use clear and descriptive labels for your form fields, and place them above the fields for better readability.
- Align your form fields vertically, unless there are only two or fewer fields in a row.
- Indicate which fields are required and which are optional, using asterisks or other symbols.
- Use drop-down menus, radio buttons, or checkboxes for fields that have multiple choices, and limit the number of options to avoid overwhelming the user.
- Use multi-step forms or divide long forms into sections with clear headings, to reduce friction and increase completion rates.
- Match the size of your form fields to the expected length of the input, to guide the user and save space.
- Use placeholder text or hints to provide examples or instructions for your form fields, but make sure they disappear when the user starts typing.
- Use validation and feedback messages to inform the user of any errors or successes in their input, and provide clear instructions on how to fix them.
- Use consistent and appealing design elements, such as colors, fonts, buttons, and icons, to create a positive user experience and reinforce your brand identity.
As mentioned above, tools like Link2forms will help to generate embedded HTML to be inserted in iFrames that can be added to your existing website, or links to external pages. I hope this helps you create amazing web forms for your website.