Web Forms: How to Add Web Forms to Your Website

Hi, everyone. It’s Sandi Leyva. I want to share with you how to get a web form onto your website. We have lots of options for you. But first, we do want to let you know that we do not support forms. In other words, we’re not going to do a form for you. It is not part of your package for us to design forms. However, there are some exceptions, so keep reading. We’ll be happy to add any form that you have created. And so let’s get into the details.

Now, why do we have this stance? Well, typically what happens is people will take the WordPress website and they’ll add a forms plugin, a free one. One of them called Contact Form 7 is actually the most successful way to get your WordPress site hacked. So that’s why we don’t support it. There are email deliverability issues. There are spam issues where people will fill out your form and set up a robot to fill out a form and send you hundreds of messages that way. It’s really hard to receive a good qualified email lead through this way. And like I mentioned, huge hacking risk. So that’s why we decided a few years ago not to support forms.

However, and that’s a huge however, there are many, many ways to get around this and to do better. So keep reading or keep listening and let’s talk about five really awesome solutions, really four and then one really bad one, but five solutions for you if you are determined to add forms to your website. And I think in many, many cases, if you’ve got lead generation funnels set up, it’s going to be very successful for you to do that. If not, if you just want a lead emailed to you and you don’t have any kind of office support, you don’t know what you’re going to do with that lead, then it’s really kind of a big waste of time. But let’s get into your options and let’s talk about this.

So if you have a sophisticated CRM, that stands for customer relationship management software, and it creates forms for you, this would be on the level of a HubSpot or an Infusionsoft, or ThriveFuel 360 CRM, then we’ll be more than happy for you to develop that form in your CRM and send us the code and we’ll add it as a link or we’ll embed it into a webpage for you.

Another way to get web forms, and this is the most common way that we have, especially those of you that have both the web package and the newsletter option with us, then we have probably set you up with Constant Contact. And if you have both of those packages with us, we will do this for free. We will go into your email marketing, Constant Contact, and we’ll get all this sign up form set up for you for free. That’s to sign up for your newsletter. We think that’s a good option. We think that’s a very safe option. And if you do have Mailchimp or anything besides Constant Contact, we’re happy to do that for you at an extra charge. However, we only support Constant Contact. And again, those who have both the website and the newsletter package, then it’s free.

A really great cheap, free, simple, effective option is Google Forms. The way that you can use Google Forms is you can go into your Google Drive or your Google Docs and then set up a form. And then Google will give you the embed code or a link, and we can put it behind a button, or we can paste the embed code into a webpage for you. And then that Google Form will be on your website. That is a really, really great way. And we have a whole separate video on exactly how to do that. So we do definitely recommend that.

Now to create your Google Form, you need to do that, or you need to hire us to pay extra. If you’ve created your own Google Form for yourself and can get us the embed code or the link, we will do that for free for all the Web packages Pro and up. So adding it to your website is free, but creating the form is up to you or it’s an extra package.

All right, the other thing you can do is PDF forms. And we see this come in really handy with those of you have tax organizers and your tax software enables you to generate a blank form of all the questions you need to ask before tax season so that you can get the tax return prepared. So if you have that situation, that is completely free.

All we need for you to do is generate the PDF for us and send it to us and we will add the PDF to your website. And then we will add a link to the PDF. And if you want some copy around, here’s a organizer for you to fill out, then we can do that. Or you can write that yourself and tell us exactly how to set up a page in your website for you. That’s included in Web Pro and up. and it’s just an hourly rate if you have Web Starter or Web Premium.

The other thing you can do is use Adobe Acrobat to create a PDF form. And then that’ll create a PDF for you that you can send to us. And then again, we can add any kind of PDF to your website. And in most cases, Pro and up, that’s totally included in your package and no extra charge.

The absolute worst option is the one that many, many, many, many, many people come to us for. And that is, I want to do a form using a WordPress plugin. Now, we absolutely ban Contact Form 7. So sorry, but it’s just too risky to us and to you. But there are some fair plugins that you must pay for. And if you want to do it this way, this is the absolute worst option, but if you want to do it this way, then you can hire us to install this, or you can do it yourself. And then you can set up the information.

The thing is we don’t support it. If you’re not getting emails, if you lose the leads, you’re on your own. You’ll have to get the support of the form. You’ll have to get somewhere else to turn to. We absolutely don’t take those questions under any circumstance. Even if we set them up for you, we are not going to support because we do not, I mean, we’ve given you four other options that we think are a lot better and it’s just really hard. Usually it’s your email or WordPress itself, the spam filters that are built in that we can’t do anything about. And that causes the most problems when it comes to WordPress form plugins.

All right, so how? Let’s get to action, your action items and how to do this. And those of you that want to get started on forms, you have a valid business reason to do it, then we have a video, we have five videos in addition to this one. You can listen to each one and follow the steps, or you can hire us to do any one of these and we will take care of it. It is an extra charge for us to do forms, but not to just simply embed them if you give the code.

Your action items are to view the videos. Decide on the method, one through five. Create the form yourself, or reach out to hire us and get a bid. Send us the code. And of course, if you hire us, we’ll be able to generate that ourself. Send us the link URL if you want a button. Send us the embed code if you want the form to be on the website with all the fields. And tell us what page you want the code, the form to be on your website. And then it’s magic. Your form will have been implemented and then we’ll be all done.

So thank you for listening on how we support forms, what’s an extra charge, what’s free, and I hope it’s clear. And if you have any questions on anything forms or anything about your website, you know that you can go to acceleratorwebsites.com and send us a support request. It’s also on this page. And you can also call and we’re happy to listen to your issues and to find a great solution for you to help you with your marketing. Thanks everyone. Bye.