Web Marketing all-in-one for Dummies®

Chapter 6. Encouraging Communication

In This Chapter

• Understanding the extras that make Web sites work

• Selecting and implementing forms

• Incorporating powerful communication techniques

A Web site should help build rapport with new prospects and introduce existing customers to new products and services. In this chapter, you explore a number of tools that can help you communicate with prospects and customers and them with you. You also improve your capability to learn about your customers and their questions — and what about your business is and isn't working for them. The bottom line is that adding communication tools to your site will help turn it into a safe and efficient leads- and sales-producing machine!

Perfecting Your Form

If you've ever added your name and e-mail address to a page on a Web site, you have experienced using a form. You probably also know how frustrating it can be to complete a form and submit it only to be met with an error page, realizing that your form submission didn't work! Web forms have been an integral part of Web site functionality since even before the first company Web site went live — for good reason, too. Forms allow visitors to do things, such as make contact with the Web site owner, opt in to a newsletter, or tell friends about a Web site they should become familiar with. In the following section, I cover all these functions in more detail.

Choosing the right contact form

Note

Having a contact form on your Web site is quite possibly the most important utility ...