Contact form or phone number on your website

Compared 6 min read

Which one belongs at the top of the page, which one belongs at the bottom, and why the two of them are catching completely different customers.

You are looking at your own website wondering whether to put the phone number bigger, or take the form off, or move both. Somebody told you forms lose people. Somebody else told you nobody calls any more.

The form and the phone number are not competing for the same customer, and once you see which is which the layout answers itself.

They are catching two different people

The person who calls has already decided. They have a problem now, they want to hear a voice, and they want to know today whether you can come. A form is an obstacle to that person. Every second they spend hunting for a number is a second they could spend calling the next business.

The person who fills out the form is not ready to talk. They might be at work, or on a train, or unsure enough about what they need that they do not want to explain it out loud to a stranger. They might be doing this at eleven at night. Take the form away and they do not call you instead. They leave.

Neither one is the better customer. The ringer usually books faster, and the form filler is often researching a bigger job. You want both, and you can have both.

Where the phone number goes

At the top of every page, as text, as a link that dials when it is tapped.

Top, because a person who wants to call should never scroll. Every page, because visitors do not always arrive on your home page and a number that only lives on a contact page has been hidden from most of your traffic. Text, because a number inside an image cannot be tapped, cannot be copied, and cannot be read out by a phone.

Put it in the footer as well. That is where people look when they have finished reading and made up their mind, and it costs nothing to have it in both places.

Where the form goes

Below, on the page about the thing they were reading, and again on a contact page.

Put a short form at the end of each service page, so somebody reading about gutter repairs can ask about gutter repairs without navigating anywhere. The moment they are convinced is the moment to make it easy, and that moment is halfway down a page you were not thinking about.

Keep it short. A form's job on a service page is to start a conversation, not to collect a full brief.

What the form is genuinely better at

It arrives in writing, so the address is spelled correctly and the model number is right, and you are not scribbling on a receipt in the van. It arrives with photos when you ask for them, which for anything you would otherwise have to drive out and look at is a real saving. And it arrives at times you are not available, which turns a customer who would have given up into a customer who is waiting for you in the morning.

There is a fourth, quieter one. Some people will not call at all, and they are not only young people. If calling is the only way to reach you, those inquiries do not become calls or anything else.

What the phone is genuinely better at

A three minute call settles things a form cannot: whether you cover that street, whether Thursday works, whether the thing they are describing is even the thing they have. It also lets somebody hear you, which for a stranger about to let you into their house does more than any page of text.

For urgent trades this is not close. Somebody with water coming through a ceiling will not fill out a form.

Both, and both tested

A phone number is easy to check. Call it from a phone that is not yours and see what happens.

A form is not, and that is where this goes wrong. Forms fail silently. They keep showing the thank-you message long after they have stopped delivering anything, and nothing arriving looks exactly the same as nobody writing. If you have a form on your site and you have never tested it, you do not know whether you have a form.

Fill it in yourself, from an address that is not your business one, on the first of every month.

What to do about the small screen

Most of your visitors are on a phone, so check it on a phone rather than the machine on your desk.

Hold your own site in one hand. Can you see a number without scrolling? Does tapping it dial? Is the form readable, or do the boxes push off the side? Is the button reachable with a thumb?

Look at what is above the number as well. If a large photo, a cookie banner and a menu are all pushing your phone number below the fold, the number is effectively not on the page, no matter how big it looks on your desktop.

A page by page checklist

• Phone number in the header of every page, as tappable text and not part of an image
• Same number in the footer, and the same number on your Google listing and your van
• A short form at the bottom of each service page, about that service
• A contact page with both, plus the areas you cover and your hours
• Test the form from a non-business email address on the first of every month
• Send form inquiries to two addresses so one quiet mailbox does not lose them
• An automatic reply to the sender confirming it arrived and saying when you answer
• Check the whole thing on your own phone, one handed, the way a customer will

When you genuinely only need one

If you are a solo emergency trade, and you have tested honestly and nobody uses the form, take it off.

And if you have no site yet and are choosing where to start, start with the number. A number people can find, on a page that loads, is worth more than a form nobody has ever tested. You can add the form later, when there is something worth adding it to.

Questions people ask

Should I have a contact form at all

Yes, unless you have tested it for months and nobody uses it. It catches people who will not call, and people contacting you at times you are not answering.

Is it bad to only have a phone number

It is not wrong, and for some emergency trades it is the right call. You will lose the people who would rather write, and only you can judge whether that group matters for your work.

Where should the phone number go on a website

The header of every page, as text that dials when tapped, and the footer as well. Never inside an image, and never only on the contact page.

Do people still call businesses

Yes, particularly when something is broken and urgent. What has changed is that they will not hunt for the number. If it is not visible immediately they will call the next business in the results.

Should the form ask for a phone number

Ask for it, and let them choose. Some people give it happily and would rather you called. Others will only give an email, and forcing the field turns them into nobody at all.

What about a live chat widget

Only if a real person answers it quickly. An unanswered chat box is worse than no chat box, because the visitor has now been ignored in real time rather than just left waiting.