The contact form is where a visitor becomes a client. And it is usually either overloaded with fields, or full of spam, or — worst — silently sending nothing.
Which plugin
- WPForms Lite (free) — easiest for beginners, drag and drop
- Contact Form 7 — light on the server, but the settings are more technical
- Fluent Forms — fast, generous free version
If your theme already includes a form — use it; fewer plugins, faster site.
How many fields
Rule: every extra field costs you submissions. For most businesses these are enough: name · email (or phone) · message. Ask for budget, city, industry, preferred contact and how you heard about us — and you get a clean database and an empty inbox.
Privacy requires
- A consent checkbox with a link to your privacy policy (not pre-ticked)
- A sentence on why you ask for the data
- Do not collect more than you need
Spam — three layers
- 1. Honeypot — a hidden field people never see and bots fill in; if filled, the message is dropped. Free and invisible.
- 2. reCAPTCHA v3 or hCaptcha — works in the background, no traffic-light puzzles
- 3. Limits — a minimum message length, blocking links in the name field
Still getting spam — usually your info@ address is published as text on the site; bots harvest it. Show it as an image or via the form only.
The step everyone skips
Test the form. Send yourself a message from a phone and check it arrives (and check spam!). If it does not — it is not the form but the sending method: the fix is SMTP.
Details that win clients
- A thank-you message: we reply within 24 hours — expectations calm people
- A phone number visible NEXT to the form — some people will not type
- A copy to a second employee — so a message does not wait while you travel