Why nobody fills in your contact form
A form nobody sends is not the visitors' fault. It comes down to a handful of concrete things you can find and fix in an afternoon, and each one costs you enquiries.
Before fixing anything, count three numbers
Before I rebuild a form, I want to know how many people even get to it. It often turns out that only a small fraction of visitors ever reach the page with the form. The form is fine, the path to it is missing. That fix takes an hour and has nothing to do with the form itself.
The minimum I want to see: views of the page with the form, starts of filling in and sends. Three numbers, three events in analytics. A gap between the first and second says the form did not catch anyone's interest. A gap between the second and third says it is too long or fails with an error. Without these three numbers you are fixing blindly.
Every extra field cuts conversion
Every field is a question and every question is a reason to leave. Many business websites ask for five fields: name, email, phone, subject, message. For a first contact you need two things: who you are and where I should get back to you. The rest a phone call or a reply will handle. Everything else is curiosity you pay for with lost visitors.
The dangerous fields are those that make people think: budget, deadline, a choice from eight categories. Removing a budget field often increases sends noticeably, and lead quality barely drops, because many people filled in the budget at random anyway.
If you really need the fields, split the form into steps. The first step is one question everyone can answer, then the contact details. Splitting works because whoever took the first step usually finishes the second. Same number of questions, fewer people leaving.
| Number of fields | When it fits |
|---|---|
| 2 fields (name, phone) | Highest volume, lower quality |
| 3 to 4 fields | A sensible compromise for services |
| 5 to 7 fields | Only for higher value jobs |
| 8 or more fields | Only for B2B enquiries with a budget |
A form in the footer is seen by few visitors
A form at the end of a long page is seen by a fraction of people. Most visitors decide earlier or leave. If the only path to an enquiry is at the very bottom, you lose most of the interest before it starts.
A combination of three places works for me: a button right in the header, a form roughly in the middle of the page after the references section, and a call bar stuck to the bottom on mobile. It is not about being pushy, but about being at hand when someone decides. That moment comes at a different time for everyone.
- An action button visible without scrolling, ideally with a concrete promise
- The form placed after the section that answers the main doubt, not at the very top
- A sticky call bar on mobile, for trades clearly the strongest element
- The enquiry link in the menu in a different colour, not fifth in line
- A separate enquiry page you can link to from ads
People do not give their number to someone who has not said what happens next
A phone number is the most valuable detail you ask for. Most people give it only when they know what happens next. A sentence above the button like “I will get back to you within two hours and will not call repeatedly” often works better than any design change.
Next to the form belongs whatever reassures people: the name and photo of the person who will reply, a real address and company ID, two or three reviews with full names, a certificate if it matters in your field. An empty form on a white background with no context looks like a spam trap and people sense it.
Want a website that brings enquiries?
Tell me in two minutes what you need. I reply within 24 hours with a free homepage design and a fixed price in writing.
Get a free proposal →On mobile it is a different form from the one you test
Most service visits come from phones, but forms are tested on a computer. On the phone it turns out that fields are narrow, the keyboard covers the button and the date is picked with a wheel you cannot control with your thumb. Technically the form works, you just cannot fill it in standing on a bus.
I always test the same way: phone in one hand, on mobile data, not wifi, and go through the whole path from the ad to sending. If I get stuck, the customer gets stuck. This takes three minutes and finds more errors than an hour of looking at code.
- Keyboard type by field: numeric for phone, with @ for email
- Field height at least 48 pixels, otherwise thumbs miss
- Autofill enabled, so the browser fills in name and number
- A full width button above where the keyboard appears
- No captcha with traffic lights, a hidden field is enough against bots
- Consent as one checkbox, not a paragraph of small print
Errors you find out about six months later
The worst case is a form that looks sent and never arrives. The server sends the email from an address without SPF and DKIM, and the message lands in spam or is dropped completely. Meanwhile the owner waits and complains that nobody enquires. Analytics shows the sends, so the error is hard to find.
Other classics: enquiries going to a former colleague's address or a mailbox nobody opens, validation that rejects a phone number written with spaces, and an error message in red text above the field that is not visible on mobile, so people press the button again and again and give up.
When there are several forms and enquiries disappear, I solve it as a whole. A new website including the enquiry path starts at CZK 19,990 and is delivered within 7 days. Tracking and a lead database are part of Growth System from CZK 39,900.
- Send a test enquiry from someone else's phone and network
- Check SPF, DKIM and DMARC on the domain the form sends from
- Store enquiries in a database too, not only in email
- Turn on phone notifications, response speed decides the job
- Keep phone validation tolerant and clean up spaces and prefixes yourself
- After sending, show a real thank you page, not just a line of green text
Want a website that brings enquiries?
Tell me in two minutes what you need. I reply within 24 hours with a free homepage design and a fixed price in writing.
Get a free proposal →Frequently asked questions
How many fields should an enquiry form have?
Two are enough for a first contact: name and phone or email. I add a third field with a short description of the job when you need to filter out nonsense. The rest you learn on the first call, which is faster than writing anyway.
Is a phone number alone better than a form?
For trades and emergency services, yes, the phone wins. For more expensive and less urgent services, a form catches people who do not want to call, typically in the evening or from work. The best results come from combining both: the number in the header and the form further down.
How do I know enquiries are not arriving because of a technical error?
Send a test enquiry from a device unrelated to the website and check whether it arrives within a minute. Then check the spam folder and the sending logs. If analytics shows sends but the mailbox is empty, the problem is email delivery, not your visitors.