Web Copywriting
What to Put on a Contact Page (and What to Leave Off)
The contact page is the last thing between an interested visitor and an enquiry, and it is usually the least considered page on the site.
The contact page is where a visitor who has decided to talk to you either does or quietly does not. It is also, on most sites, the page that received the least thought — a form, an address, and a heading that says Contact Us. Fixing it is one of the few copy jobs that takes an afternoon and can be measured within a month.
The Job of the Page Is to Remove Hesitation
Someone reaching this page is already interested. They are not weighing you against competitors any more; they are weighing whether sending a message is going to be worth it. The unspoken questions are small and practical: who reads this, how long until I hear back, am I about to be added to a mailing list, will I get a sales call I did not ask for.
Answer those in a sentence each and the page has done nearly all of its work.
Five Things Worth Having on It
- Who replies, by name or by role: a message going to a named person feels answerable in a way that a generic inbox does not.
- A response time you will actually hit: within one business day is a promise. We will get back to you shortly is not.
- What to include in the message: tell people what helps you quote — the pages involved, the deadline, the budget range. It speeds up their first reply and yours.
- What happens after the form: a reply with questions, a call, a quote. Name the next step so the button is not a leap.
- An alternative to the form: a plain email address for the substantial number of people who will not use a form at all.
If your enquiries routinely arrive missing the same information, the fix is usually on this page rather than in your reply template. One line telling people what to include changes the quality of what arrives.
Cut the Form Down
Fields get added because someone thought the data might be useful, and they are rarely removed afterwards. The test is whether the answer changes what you do next. Company size, how did you hear about us, and a dropdown of twelve services usually do not — they are reporting conveniences paid for by lost enquiries.
Required fields deserve particular scrutiny. A required phone number on a page whose visitors mostly want an email reply is a straightforward way to lose people who would have been good clients.
The Thank-You Page Is Part of the Contact Page
Most sites end the interaction with a message thanking the visitor for getting in touch, which tells them nothing they did not already know. That screen is the one moment you have someone's full attention with no competing options, and it should repeat the response time, say what to look out for, and give an alternative route if they do not hear back.
Check that the form still works before rewriting anything around it. Broken contact forms are far more common than anyone expects, they fail silently, and no amount of copy fixes a submission that never arrives. Send yourself one today.
Address, Hours and the Trust Signals
A physical address, a registered company number and real opening hours do more for credibility on this page than anywhere else on the site, because this is where people check that a business exists behind the website. If you work remotely and have no office to list, say where the team is based rather than leaving the section out.
The same instinct applies to the page's tone: this is not the place for personality experiments. Plain, specific and reassuring converts, and everything else is decoration.
For how the rest of the site should hand visitors to this page, see how to write a homepage. If your pages are getting traffic but the enquiries are not arriving, our website copywriting service looks at the whole path rather than one page at a time.
Questions
Questions about this article
Still unsure about something? Talk to a specialist — no script, no sales pitch.
Show one if someone will answer it. A number that rings out or goes to a full voicemail damages more trust than having no number at all. If you would rather not take calls, say that plainly and give a response time for email instead.
As few as you can act on. Name, email and a message box is enough for most service businesses. Every extra field costs completions, so a field is only worth adding if it changes how you respond, not merely because it would be nice to know.
Yes. It is one of the most visited pages on most small business sites, and it is where people check that a real business is behind the website before they commit to talking to it.