An online form is one of the most common features of any type of website. Most websites have at least one simple general contact form. Some websites are dressed in a multitude of landing pages with dozens of unique forms that direct to different departments. There are also many different methods used to insert a contact form to a website.
Some popular options for adding online forms to a website today include:
- Using a plugin form-builder software
- Coding a form with a script directly on the web server
- Embedding a form from Hubspot
- Embedding a form from Sales Force
- Linking to a third-party hosted form
- Embedding a form from a newsletter service
Using a plugin form-builder software
If you use a CMS like WordPress to manage your website, there are form-builder plugins available to insert and maintain the form directly via the website software. Great examples are Gravity Forms and Formidable. These premium plugins offer visual tools to select the fields you need and insert that form via a shortcode into any web page. You can also set up preferences for the thank you message or confirmation web page that appears after submit, and the email notifications that trigger.
Coding a form with a script directly on the web server
For advanced programmers, you can deploy a custom script on the server and create a nicely crafted custom form with proper HTML, CSS, and whatever other technologies of choice are appropriate. In this case, all of the form functions are probably running directly in the website and not part of a pre-boxed plugin software or CMS platform. This is likely more common in custom apps, and would require someone to know their way around security to prevent form and email abuse. This method was much more common decades ago, before today’s common CMS solutions were available. In fact, there are modern frameworks that skilled developers use which also have ready-to-use form tools and template code.
Embedding a Hubspot contact form on your website
For a company utilizing the Hubspot marketing and CRM platform, Hubspot offers options to integrate forms with websites.
Hubspot has its own form building tools available in the Hubspot account portal. When you create a new form within Hubspot, you can choose an “embed” option. This presents a snippet of code that needs to be inserted on a web page. If you are the Hubspot admin or site owner, you can send a copy of that code and the name of the associated form to the web developer. The web developer will then insert that code into the page content accordingly. In this case, the design of the form will be fairly basic and controlled by settings in Hubspot. None of the data is stored in the actual website, since it is being entered directly into fields that Hubspot is hosting.
Alternatively, there is an official WordPress plugin supported by Hubspot. This plugin allows the website administrator to login to WordPress and to Hubspot and connect the two together, so integrations with tracking codes and forms then become accessible within WordPress.
Additionally, there are sometimes add-on plugins available in form-builders like Gravity Forms. In this case, it’s a bit of a combo solution. You are using the form-builder plugin method to create a nice attractive form on your WordPress site, but you are then also mapping that form to the form data that lives inside of Hubspot. It’s more like a three setup process since there must be fields available on the CRM side in Hubspot to store the data, then the form that actually displays on the WordPress site must be built, and then the two things must be tied together. The benefit for this method is that you usually have more control over the look and feel of the website form.
Embedding a form from Sales Force
Sales Force is a leading CRM choice for many businesses. The sales teams using Sales Force take their lead tracking very seriously, and they want to ensure that any contact forms filled out on the website make it into their pipeline.
The methods available for Sales Force are very similar to what I described for Hubspot. Sales Force offers tools to set up customized forms on their platform and setup preferences and automations around each form. Either the Sales Force account owner or an implementation specialist can acquire an embed code snippet and instructions to pass over to a website developer. Since the form itself is part of the Sales Force system and maintained there, it is only “framed in” on the website. That takes liability for the form’s operations and data security off the website admin’s plate.
Alternatively, it’s possible to use a plugin or middleware that is compatible with Sales Force, which pushes the form leads from a custom form on the website over to Sales Force. That may work just fine for some organizations. For others, they see a risk in the reliability of receiving all of the form submissions. This could be a more appropriate approach if the design and goal of the form is very complex and you have an expert in Sales Force integration assisting with the process.
Linking to a third-party hosted form
This approach to creating online forms takes some burden off the website-side. It means you use a separate service such as Jot Form or Google Forms. The form is created directly on the third-party platform. When it’s ready, you add a link to the unique form URL on the website.
If you have a desire to build intricate surveys and collect lots of data in a form, some services like this may also offer robust reporting capabilities.
While the use of separate form sites does remove responsibility and maintenance from the website administrator, it is often not perceived as professional as a custom designed form that was integrated with your branding and domain. The design options for the style of the form may also be very limited.
Embedding a form from a newsletter service
If you have a regular email newsletter with subscribers, you should be using a quality newsletter service to design and deliver the email content. Whether you choose Mailchimp, Emma, Constant Contact, Active Campaign, or other providers, the process is almost always the same:
You login to the account to set up subscriber form preferences and grab a code snippet to embed it on a website. When a new visitor discovers the subscribe form on your site, they will fill out the fields and submit directly to the newsletter system (in the background). Any automation instructions you created in the newsletter platform will trigger accordingly.
Determining the best web form approach for you
With these six examples it’s obvious there are plenty of ways to easily add a contact form onto a website. Which method is right for you? Perhaps two options are appropriate for different marketing and sales goals that you have in mind? Discuss your typical sales funnel and workflow with your peers. Bring those thoughts to the web developer, and make decisions together about your online contact forms.