As an SMB CEO, you are required to find the best solutions offering you the best value for money, as resources are scarce these days.
When you are running a full-fledge business website, you need to give emphasis to one of the most important – yet often neglected – features of your website: Your online forms.
Your online forms – particularly your contact forms – need to be crafted in such a way that it converts well. Increasing your contact form conversion rate should be your top-most priority.
When you design online forms, you essentially have two options: design and host on your own, or design and host using a third-party service.
Self-hosted vs. 3rd-party-hosted
There are the pros and cons in each option:
Host forms on your own
Pro:
- Total control – You can build your form however you like
Cons:
- Coding skills required, and although there are scripts/plugins you can use, you still need some coding knowledge.
- Resource-consuming, and if your forms are busy (e.g. many people – including spammers – use yours) your overall website performance can be impacted.
Host forms with a third-party service provider
Pro:
- No/minimal coding skills required
- Hosted on your service providers’ server, eliminating the resource consumption on your web hosting.
- Internal spam filter
Con:
- You have little control over the customizations as the program is commercial, non-open-source. You can only control what you are allowed to.
- Typically you need to pay a subscription fee for the resources you use to host your forms.
I personally inclined toward third-party service provider due to the convenience and security offered – in exchange for a relatively small fee charged on monthly/quarterly/annually basis.
Recommended: 123ContactForm
There are several services available on the web, but please allow me to recommend 123ContactForm, as it’s the latest I have tried and found out that it’s one of those apps which are simple, yet powerful.
123ContactForm offers form building and hosting tools. Several highlights:
- Hosted: No coding and resource management necessary
- Secure: No need to thwarting malicious codes and hacks yourself
- Integrate your forms with online payment gateways, CRM apps, and more.
You can build any forms you can think of, and have them hosted from a single dashboard for better control over your forms – all available to you for free.
Indeed, 123ContactForm offers a forever free plan, which lets you to access essential features an average user would need. If you need more control and perks over your web forms, you can upgrade anytime you want.
What can 123ContactForm do for your business?
1. Make people easier to contact you via your business website
To the very least, you need a contact form so that your site visitors, prospects and clients can contact you for more information or give feedback about your services/products. Yes, some do prefer phone contact, but if you are doing business internationally, it’s often more convenient for people to contact you via your contact forms.
2. Let people respond to your job opportunities easier online
If you are posting your job opening on-site and taking job applications via your website, online forms help you gather required information about the candidates.
3. Take online orders and payment securely
Taking online orders and process the payment securely with third-party payment gateway integration on your form.
Not stopping there, you can actually offer multiple payment processor integrations on the same form, which means that your customers can choose the one they prefer to complete the payment. Quite powerful. In fact, 123ContactForm is the only form builder which offers such capabilities.
4. Take surveys and polls
Learn what your customers think of your products/services or tap the pulse of the industry by launching surveys and polls straight from your website.
5. Capturing newsletter subscribers and business leads
Leads and subscribers are gold; treat them like one by taking their name, email address and other data securely.
You can learn more about 123ContactForm’s small business forms here: http://www.123contactform.com/small-business-forms.htm
