Here’s something you can do today that takes about ten minutes and might save you a lot of business: fill out the contact form on your own website and see what happens.
Most owners set up a form when the site launched, saw it work once, and never thought about it again. That’s normal. But forms break quietly. They don’t send you an alert when they stop working. The leads just stop showing up, and it’s easy to assume things are slow.
We recently found a client’s form had been quietly throwing away every submission since launch. Every single one. Nobody knew, because nothing looked wrong on the website. The form said “thank you” every time. The messages just never went anywhere.
How to test your form, step by step
Set aside ten minutes and do this the way a real customer would.
1. Submit it yourself
Go to your website, find your contact or quote form, and fill it out with your own name and a personal email address (not your work one). Put something in the message like “Test from the owner, please ignore” so whoever gets it knows what it is. Note the time.
2. Check the inbox it should land in
Who is supposed to get these? You, your office manager, a shared inbox? Check that inbox. Give it a few minutes. If it shows up, great. If it doesn’t, keep going.
3. Check spam and junk
This is where a lot of form messages end up. Look in the spam or junk folder of the receiving inbox. If you find it there, the form is working but your email setup isn’t, and customers’ messages may have been sitting in spam for months.
4. Check your phone and text alerts
If you set up text or app notifications for new leads, make sure they came through too. A lot of contractors around Charleston count on getting a text when a lead comes in so they can call back from the job site. If that alert isn’t firing, you’re calling back hours late or not at all.
5. Try it on your phone
Most of your visitors are on their phones, so test the form there too. Can you see every field? Does the keyboard cover the submit button? Does the button actually work when you tap it? A form that works fine on a desktop can be frustrating or broken on mobile.
6. Check the confirmation customers see
After you hit submit, does the page tell the person what happens next? A clear “Thanks, we’ll call you within one business day” goes a long way. If they also get an email copy, make sure it reads well and has your correct phone number.
Why contact forms stop working
If your test failed, here are the usual reasons. None of them mean you did anything wrong. They just happen.
- Email delivery problems. Your website sends the message, but the receiving email server doesn’t trust it. This often comes down to missing or incorrect email settings on your domain, like SPF records, that tell other servers your website is allowed to send mail. Without them, messages land in spam or get dropped entirely.
- A broken plugin or update. If your site runs on WordPress, the form usually depends on a plugin. An update to the plugin, the theme, or WordPress itself can break it without any visible sign.
- Captcha trouble. Spam protection is good, but if it’s set up wrong or its keys expire, it can block real people too. Sometimes it blocks everyone.
- The wrong recipient. The form is sending to an old employee, an email address you stopped checking, or a typo. This one is more common than you’d think, especially after staff changes.
Make it a habit
Once your form passes, put a reminder on your calendar to test it again once a month, and any time your website gets updated. It’s one of the cheapest checks you can do. Your website can rank well and get plenty of visitors, but if the form doesn’t deliver, none of that turns into work.
The same goes for your Google listing. If people are reaching out through Google and your site, both need to work. We wrote about how Charleston home service businesses can get more from their Google Business Profile if you want to look at that side too.
Need a hand with it?
If your form failed the test, or you just don’t have time to dig into it, call us at (843) 582-0690 or request a free audit. We’ll check your website, your form, and your Google listing, and tell you plainly what we find.