Are you searching for an easy-to-use WordPress form builder plugin to create a form? While it’s important to find a plugin that is user-friendly and straightforward to set up, it’s equally important to consider how effective the form will be in achieving its purpose. In this article, we’ll provide guidelines on how to create an effective form, so that you can maximize its impact and achieve your goals.
Guidelines on how to build an effective WordPress form
These steps are essential in creating an effective WordPress form. Before jumping into building your form, it’s important to jot down a list of key elements that will help make your form successful. Here are a few guidelines to consider when creating an effective WordPress form.
Plan before making a decision
Planning is a crucial step in creating an effective WordPress form as it ensures that every action you take towards building your form is well-organized and aligned with your form’s purposes.
Planning your form ahead of time can help you make the right decisions and avoid unnecessary actions that may waste your time, effort, and resources—choosing the right WordPress form plugin for your form is one example.
In short, a well-planned form can help you build trust with your audience as it shows that you are organized, professional, and care about providing a positive user experience to your website visitors.
Identify your form type
To ensure that your form achieves its intended purpose and doesn’t confuse users, it’s always important to consider the type of your form. This will help you stay focused on your goal for the form and ensure that it has a consistent meaning for users. By sticking to the form type, you can select fields that are appropriate and will be easier to understand for users.
There are various types of forms such as contact forms, survey forms, user registration forms, and much more. For instance, if you plan to create a simple contact form, you need to focus on its purpose and avoid adding unnecessary fields that could confuse or burden users. For example, in building a contact form, if you only need the visitor’s email address to communicate with them, there’s no need to include a phone number field. Adding such fields may detract from the form’s primary purpose, which is to collect essential information from users in a clear and concise manner. That’s why identifying the type of form you’re creating is crucial in choosing the most effective fields since it benefits not just the form users but also the form creators.
Evaluate form design
A simple, clear, and easy-to-understand layout is often the most effective. While there are many layout options to choose from, prioritizing the user’s experience is key to creating an effective form.
An effective form should be simple enough not to affect the user experience. Its purpose should be clear and it should be designed to collect the necessary information in a way that is easy to understand for the form submitter—clear labels and proper validation errors. This will help ensure that users are able to complete the form easily and without frustration.
Choosing the right form plugin
While there are many form plugins available that can handle tasks from creating a simple contact form to integrating with third-party apps, selecting the wrong plugin can be unproductive and waste your time. This can lead to starting again from scratch and finding a reliable plugin.
When choosing a plugin, it’s important to consider whether you want to use the free or premium version. Take the time to carefully evaluate the features, ease of use, pricing, and customer reviews before making a decision. It’s also a good idea to try out the free version of the plugin first to see if it meets your needs before committing to the paid version.
You can find more information about how to choose the best WordPress form plugin.
Form testing
Once you have set up everything, it is important to test your form to ensure that all the added functionalities work flawlessly on different browsers and devices. Even small details can affect the functionality of your form and the perception of your form users. For instance, in a simple contact form, the email field is necessary as it will be the primary contact to be used, but if it doesn’t have the proper validation, users may mistype it and you won’t be able to contact them anymore.
Add spam protection
If your form lacks a spam protection feature, you may get frustrated with how spam can ruin your form submission list. In this case, it’s always best to consider adding spam protection to your form. Setting up spam protection, such as reCAPTCHA, is easy. To read further about this, we have a guide on How to block contact form spam in WordPress.
Analyze form submissions
Once your WordPress form has been up for some time and has generated a bunch of form submissions, it’s important to review and ensure that your goals have been achieved. Check if the form submission details are correct and align with the purpose of your form. If they don’t, it’s important to evaluate your form and make any necessary changes to achieve the desired results.
Wrapping it up
This guide provides helpful tips for building an effective WordPress form. While there may be additional considerations, following these guidelines will help you create a form that meets your website’s goals and purposes. It’s important to keep these details in mind before beginning to create your form and make informed decisions.
If you’re still in the process of choosing a WordPress form plugin, you may want to consider trying out Happyforms and testing how easy it is to create the form type you need. We designed Happyforms to provide the best user experience for both form creators and form submitters. It offers a simple yet effective way to create forms.