I recently added the contact form you see in the sidebar. (If you are viewing this in a feed reader, you’ll have to hard click through to see it. Naturally.)
“Big deal” you’re probably saying.
That’s what I thought too. I mean, there has always been a “Contact Us” page here. And it gets used frequently (and abused on occasion).
But since installing the sidebar contact form, I’ve received a full 3x increase in direct contacts from the blog.
Maybe that’s just a coincidence.
Or maybe not.
All it does is make it easier, and that’s likely a good thing (assuming you want people to contact you from your blog).
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Hat tip to cforms II for the great contact form plug in. TONS of options, including multiple forms per blog!
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[tags]real estate blogging, contacts r gud![/tags]
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I think it’s very important for contact information to be accessible straight from a post. Never make someone dig for it.
As much as I dislike it sometimes, my meebo widget has significantly increased my accessibility and perceived accessibility – both of which are valuable.
Jay, my experience is similar.
When I first made http://www.HowToBuyArizonaRealEstate.com last fall, it wasn’t generating many inquiries although it was getting good traffic.
So in desperation (I had spent a ton of time creating it and I wanted a return) I used a sledgehammer and added a form at the bottom of every single page. Bingo, people started asking me for help.
It was a breakthrough. I’m embarrassed to call using an old as dirt technique a breakthrough but it was for that site.
Yep. I use cformsII as well. I need to do some tweaking on mine, but it works great and contact have gone up.
I agree completely.
Love it, Jay! By the way, unrelated except that it pertains to the side bar, do you miss your blogroll? I am thinking about nuking mine as you have apparently done.
Kris –
The blogroll was moved to a page, up under the header. It is woefully out of date, I suspect there are “dead” blogs there, and I’m just not good at maintaining it. I also grow a little weary of the “please put me on your blogroll ” emails. Don’t get me wrong, I like to add people to it, but some of the requests come from not-so-swift blogs. It would be a lot easier to be able to say, “I don’t have a blogroll” as opposed to, “I would, but your blog sucks”.
In short, I’ll probably be taking it down completely.
Well now, this appears to be some compelling evidence that a change should be in the works for my blogs…
I think forms work on blogs because blogs tend to be high-trust sites. That trust can lower visitors’ natural distrust of using forms.
Jay, thanks for the update, I hadn’t been able to get cforms to work before,
the cforms II installed like a charm with one click install and if I can do it anybody can.
Good find. I’ll have to take a look (as in it is the next tab I will visit). On the blogroll note… I guess mine started to suck. I know that you used to read me but I don’t see me on the roll…
Too bad you aren’t coming out the REtech South. It would be good to have another excellent blogger out here.
Lane – I still read your blog. I’ve got 411 blogs in my feed reader (including yours), and only 50 or so on the blogroll. Heck, there could well be some on the blogroll I no longer read — hence the need to get rid of it.
I would have loved to go to RETech South. I was asked to speak but unfortunately had to decline — it landed on the same day my Mom is in town for the first time in several years. Family first!
Interesting blog, I think I may try something similar on my site. I don’t get a ton of traffic but a simple contact us form on all of the pages that forwards to my cell phone may not be a bad idea for people needing to get a locksmith job.
As you know, I have contacted you the long way! This makes it simpler to do so, if the need arises. Looks good too.
Holy smokes Jaybird! I’ve got to get that yesterday! That’s so simple–how could I have missed it. Move over Facebook widget, a contact form is moving in!
jay
Interesting Jay as we will be adding a similar feature to our source for seller product in two weeks (along with the first of a trilogy of enhancements that will demphasize the lead component of the product and focus on connectivity points between agents and consumers….)
Funny you I ran across this Jay. I actually was testing the opposite (took my cforms down) and I completely concur with your results. I will be putting mine back up this evening. For me, it has been more than the converse of your 3 fold increase in contacts.
This is great – I’m going to check into this. Hope it will work in Wordpress.com
Hey Jay, I wanted to let you know that this is experiment is a great post. I tired something similar on my blog and have received some additional contacts as a result. I am still playing with the design and need to make some changes but I love the idea. YOu can check it out here,
http://www.teamaguilar.com/blogs/
Also, just an FYI, when I went to Archive and click on Detailed Archive for “March” it gave me a dead link. Not sure if yu were aware of this.
Thanks!
Alex
Thanks Alex – actually, it wasn’t working for any month. I fixed it. Well, I removed it. No idea what happened, it may never have worked….
Blog looks great by the way Alex!! Keep it going!