How to Create the Best WordPress Contact Form in 2024
A contact form is a great way to collect information from your users for a variety of purposes. Whether you are trying to make sales or just want to know your audience better, a contact form can help.
Below, you will find advice on how you can create WordPress contact forms and which plugins you should consider for the job. With the right tools on your side, you can be up and running with a new contact form in a matter of minutes!
Recommended: See what makes a strong contact form and view examples in our How to Design a Contact Us Page article.
What Are the Best Ways to Create a WordPress Contact Form?
When you want to create a WordPress contact form for your site, you have two general options - write the code yourself or use a plugin to create a form.
While writing contact form code from scratch may be a simple project for some experienced developers, that task may lie outside of your abilities. Fortunately, WordPress contact form plugins allow you to create without writing the code yourself. These plugins are easy to find, and we will discuss many of the best options currently available so that you can have website visitors contacting you in no time.
Need a web hosting plan for your WordPress website? We recommend Bluehost to get your site up and running.
The Top WordPress Contact Form Plugins
One of the compelling reasons to use WordPress for your site is that you’ll have access to the many different features and capabilities that have been developed by users over the years. This includes a huge catalog of WordPress contact form options, both free and paid. If you are looking for the perfect plugin for your project, consider the options we have listed below.
1. Contact Form 7
We’d like to start off our list with a classic WordPress contact form plugin. Most people who have used WordPress over the years have encountered Contact Form 7 at one point or another. Thanks to the long history of this plugin, there is plenty of support available, both from the plugin itself and from past and current users.
This choice is particularly appealing to new site owners because it is free to use. If you are just getting your business started and you don’t have a lot of room in your budget to invest in tools and software, finding as many free options as you can is a big boost. Contact Form 7 is free and provides reliable performance with plenty of features.
2. WPForms
For those who will be using a plugin to create their first WordPress contact form, it’s hard to beat WPForms. Although this option has tons of functionality and capabilities, it is also suitable for beginning users. No matter what you have in mind for your contact form, it’s likely that you can create it with WPForms
Also, like Contact Form 7, you can use this plugin for free. However, with WPForms, you can also choose to pay for the premium version if you would like to access some additional features. Most likely, you’ll be able to get started with the free version and wait to upgrade until you've evaluated what this contact form can do for your site.
3. Gravity Forms
For contact forms that look great on your pages, Gravity Forms is worthy of consideration. While you obviously want all of your forms to function properly, there is an aesthetic element to a good WordPress contact form as well. With the Gravity Forms plugin, and a little bit of patience to get the design just right, you can come away with a beautiful, reliable form.
Gravity Forms does not offer a free version, so you’ll need to pay to use this plugin right from the start. With that said, a basic license for just one site is rather affordable given the significant power that this plugin delivers.
4. Simple Basic Contact Form
The name pretty much says it all with this WordPress contact form. There is nothing fancy about Simple Basic Contact Form, but you can rely on it to get the job done. And, as you might guess, this is another free option, which will help you keep the overall cost of your site as low as possible. The money you save by not paying for a contact form plugin could potentially be put to use in other areas of this project.
While this plugin does keep things simple, don’t mistake simplicity for a lack of functionality. You should be able to accomplish most things that you have in mind with this basic contact form plugin, including using shortcodes to place forms on your site, blocking spam messages, and styling using CSS. In the end, you’ll be left with forms that look good, work well, and serve your users. What else could you ask for?
Why Is It Important to Have a Contact Form for My Website?
A website without any way for users to contact the owner of the site would be of limited utility. Of course, the specific reasons to use a WordPress contact form will vary from site to site, but the following list touches on some of the primary motivations:
- Answer questions. While using your site, a visitor may have a question come up that can’t be answered by any of the content currently on your pages. A contact form is a great way to allow them to ask those questions and receive a prompt answer.
- Be legitimate. Even if a site user doesn’t need to ask a question at the moment, using a site without a contact form would be a little suspicious. This is a common feature across nearly the entire web, so it is something that visitors expect to find in one form or another.
- Promote products and services. If you are running an ecommerce site, a contact form is a great way to move users closer to the end of the buying funnel. In other words, they might be thinking about making a purchase but have a question before they commit to buy. With a functional contact form, they can ask that question, get an answer, and hopefully will go on to complete their order.
You may have your own list of reasons for wanting to add a WordPress contact form to your site. No matter what the motivation may be, this is a feature that you’ll want to get up and running as soon as possible.
Get Started With Bluehost For WordPress
With Bluehost you can host and build your WordPress website with ease, as well as connect a wide array of plugins and necessary features. Plans start as low as $2.95.
Frequently Asked Questions
It’s great to add a form that someone can fill out and submit, but where will that information go? Most likely, it will be sent to the email address that you have used to set up the form, but this can vary depending on the plugin that you are using. During the setup process, be careful to pay attention to where completed forms go, and be sure to use an email address that will be checked regularly.
Yes - instead of a contact form, you could opt to simply place your email address on the website, and some site owners choose to do just that. One notable problem with that approach, however, is that you can’t control what information comes in when you only ask people to send you an email. With a contact form, you can make some or all of the fields required for submission, so you can collect all the information you need to provide a quality response.
The right placement for your new contact form will depend on the design of your site and how prominent you want the form to be. Are you trying to collect as many submissions as possible, or do you just want to add the form in a subtle location in case someone really wants to find it? You can create a dedicated contact form page, it could be placed in the footer of every page, or it might even fit in the sidebar - the choice is yours.
When using a quality plugin, like those listed in this article, you shouldn’t have to do much in order to keep your form working properly. You might want to send in a test submission every once in a while to make sure the form is working as it should but that’s about it. Of course, it’s always important to run the updates on your plugins, as the code may be updated to plug security holes, add new features, etc. Once a new update is installed, test the form to ensure that nothing broke during the update.
Adding a contact form to a page will depend on the WordPress plugin that you decide to use. Many of the best plugins offer shortcodes, which are just quick snippets of code that you can add to any page where you would like the form to appear. If you have any questions about that process, read the support materials provided by your chosen plugin, and you should have little trouble getting the form placed exactly where you need it.
