Web forms for a blog are typical means of converting casual visitors into engaged contacts. Once readers have made the step of dropping you a few lines, they are most likely to come back. However, feeding people’s appetite for filling out forms can be a tricky task. Here are some easy tips for increasing conversion rates. Further on, you can find out how to create forms that suit each blog using the 123ContactForm plugin for WordPress.

5 PRO-CONVERSION tips:

• Simple layout, catchy design. Make the form simple by using the minimum number of fields and a one-column layout. If you plan on building a more complex form (e.g. a survey), it’s best to group fields into separate topic sections. Forms are powerful elements and their design should match the overall image of your blog. That’s because our vision usually sorts out the page elements that do not harmonize with the ensemble and ignores them. So leave grey aside and be creative. In terms of words, you can use humorous or teasing messages to spice up your forms.
• User-friendly validation. Fields that prompt for e-mail addresses or phone numbers should have some simple hints below, stating which the desired input format is. This may seem redundant, but mistakes may occur in rush. If your form doesn’t have an autofill option, users should be aware of what they should pay attention to. This kind of interactivity is a must for a contact form, as well as for an order form for WordPress or any other type of web form that requires user input.
• Non-alien CAPTCHA. Have you ever stood dazzled in front of a hieroglyphic CAPTCHA saying to yourself: “Gosh, I don’t have the keyboard for that”? Oh yes, so did we. There’s no reason in chasing away visitors by using an IQ test when a simple CAPTCHA will be equally successful in preventing spam. The even better solution is smart CAPTCHA, which only shows up when there is a sign that the form has been abused (e.g. multiple submissions from the same IP address).
• Efficient error handling. Another means of good interaction with users is optimized error handling. A friendly way to do it is by highlighting the fields that contain errors, so that one can notice easily what needs to be corrected.
• Custom “thank you” message. Even if this comes after the objective of having the form filled out has been reached, it’s best to send a warm message to users, thanking them for their time and announcing that your feedback on their message is on its way.

5 ANTI-CONVERSION practices to avoid:

• Design clutter. Without a powerful motivation, users would be distracted when faced with a cluttered form and they wouldn’t fill it out. Keep forms stylish, yet clean and simple.
• Typing stress. Bad questions are the ones that don’t go straight to the point and call for too much typing. Use simple statements and include radio buttons or Likert scales, if suitable.
• “Reset” button easily mistaken for the “Submit” one. There are few cases when a “Reset” button is necessary at all. Don’t use it when you don’t actually need it because, when hit accidentally, it will lead to users losing data and, naturally, giving up the form.
• No interactivity. Users need guidance. If they spend more than 5 seconds all alone wondering what to do next, the following step will be leaving your page. Of course, you don’t have to stuff the form with explanations. Use them with generosity, but also with purpose.
• No motivation. You have to point out why you’re asking users to fill out the form on your blog and/or what they will gain by doing this (even if it’s just a big Thank you).

How to build a highly customizable form using the 123ContactForm plugin for WordPress

123ContactForm is a WYSIWYG form generator that creates any kind of forms and surveys in 3 easy steps. No programming experience is required as a drag and drop form builder handles the entire process of form generating. Features of 123ContactForm include 3rd party apps integration (SalesForce, MailChimp, VerticalResponse, WebHook, iContact, Google Groups, Yahoo Groups), payment processing (integrations with PayPal,
Authorize.Net, Google Checkout). At any degree of complexity, your WordPress online form will blend perfectly with the image of your blog as 123ContactForm allows full CSS customization.

Let’s see the wizard in action!

Install the 123ContactForm plugin for WordPress:
1. Download the 123ContactForm plugin from the WordPress plugins directory.

2. Install the plugin to your WordPress database:
a. Unzip and move the folder 123contactform-for-wordpress to your wordpress/wp-content/plugins directory;
b. Visit your WordPress dashboard. In the Plugins tab, click on the Activate button for the plugin named 123ContactForm for WordPress.

Create your WordPress contact form:
1. Login/signup to www.123contactform.com.
2. In your Dashboard, go to Create New Form and choose Contact form.

3. Choose your fields (you can use the preexistent ones) and edit them to set the validation rules, label text and positioning etc.

4. Go to the next step – Form Settings. Here, you can customize the “thank you” page, choose the email address where notifications will be received and set the security options (anti-spam features include: CAPTCHA, smart CAPTCHA, password protection, country filter). This is also the step where you can customize the form theme or even the CSS code to style the form in any way you wish to.
5. The final step – Publish Form. To post the form on WordPress, choose the WordPress option in the menu on the left. It returns a line of code. In the Publish section, you can also opt for using SSL encryption for the data sent through your form.

6. Go to your WordPress editor (either in the visual or HTML mode) and paste the code in the place where you need the form to be displayed.

There is a second way of publishing forms on your WordPress page, which is particularly helpful if you have more than one form to embed, because it gives you access to all the forms at once, without having to copy the code for each one. This technique works as follows:

• Log in to 123ContactForm and go to your My Account section. Under Account Details, there is an API Key. The initial status of it is none. Press Create now. Copy the API Key that has been generated.
• Go to your WordPress dashboard and edit your post. Make sure you are in the Visual mode (not HTML). The 123ContactForm icon was added to your menu when you installed the plugin. Click on it, paste the API Key in the lightbox that appears and press Connect.

• Here, you can see a dropdown list containing all of the forms you have created with 123ContactForm. Choose the form that you want to publish and press Embed. You can edit the form at any time, to keep up with the updates in your blog design.

Authored by LAURA MOISEI

Being part of the team at 123 Contact Form, I enjoy keeping up with the latest trends in design, as well as with tech news, and share my discoveries.

I build a lot of WordPress sites and these are, in my opinion, the must-have WordPress plugins for 2011.  I start almost every new WordPress install with these plugins, even if I don’t have a specific intention for them all at the time of development.  If for no other reason, these WordPress plugins will make your websites function at a top-notch level in 2011.

Jetpack WordPress plugin for 2011

Jetpack is a compilation of handy features for any WordPress installation.  It includes Gravatar Hovercards, WordPress stats (available as a standalone plugin), Twitter Widget, wp.me shortlinks, Sharedaddy social sharing plugin, and Shortcode Embeds.

Usernoise Contact Form WordPress plugin for 2011

Usernoise is an absolute must.  It is the easiest, smallest and best-looking contact form plugin available for WordPress.  It is super-simple to setup, but that means there’s not a lot of customization options.  Usernoise Plugin ads a floating “feedback” image on the side of your site, that when clicked, created a slick AJAX powered overlay contact form.

Donation Can WordPress plugin for 2011

Donation Can creates a widget that accepts both set and custom donations via Paypal.  It works magically, letting you choose fundraising goals like “Pay for our server costs” or whatever you’d like.  Set weekly, monthly goals, anything really.  Perfect for kickstarting your WordPress website development.

Password Protect WordPress Plugin for 2011

Password Protect plugin is essential for development, especially if you’ve got a great idea that you don’t want stolen.  Make sure your WordPress install is not indexable by search engines, then install this plugin.  It will only show the front end to logged in users, ie: you.  You can even set a custom message to users who try and view your site.

Facebook Traffic Pop WordPress Plugin

This plugin creates a floating Facebook like box that utilizes jQuery overlay to catch visitors for a set period of time.  They can either “like” you or wait for it to fade away.  This is a great, albeit pushy technique to increase your social networking presence.

Foobar Announcement Bar WordPress Plugin for 2011

This plugin expertly mimics the HelloBar which is a free but branded dropdown bar at the top of your page.  HelloBar limits what you can place in their bar, and asks for $25/monthly to unlock the best features.  That’s pretty steep, especially when this plugin only costs $9 once at CodeCanyon.

Google +1 WordPress Plugin for 2011

Despite how you feel about Google’s foray into social networking, savvy webmasters will need to adopt Google +1 as the next wave of content sharing.  This plugin is free, in the WordPress plugin directory and gives you tons of flexibility to choose how the button is displayed next to your content.

What will this plugin do?

Envato Affiliate Premium Site search will allow you to display Envato marketplace results under or above your wordpress search results. This is a great way to drive affiliate sales as your user has signaled what they are looking form and you are simply displaying some premium results relevant to their search. Think about the power of search. Google knows it. When a user types a term into your search box they are telling you what they are looking for. Your site might have what you are after. If not, the Envato marketplace might have it, and you will make a sale.

This plugin is ideal for monetizing free resource sites, that have premium items on Evato. You if you have a site that gives away free: Vector Graphics, Icons, Fonts, Design Templates, Clipart, WordPress themes, WordPress plugins, Photoshop Brushes, PSD files, Joomla Templates, Flash or action script files, Magento templates or plugins, Sound files + the many more related items for sale on the Envato marketplace, then this plugin is a must have.

Why did I make this plugin?

I run a free vector graphics site called uberpiglet, and I was looking at ways of improving my affiliate sales through graphicriver, one of the Envato marketplaces. I had seen some of the larger vector graphic sites like Vecteezy were showing premium results under their site search results, and I wanted to do the same. A few hours of research later I figured out I was a bit out of my depth, and I would have pay someone to do it for me. I headed over to Elance, and hired lucid studios to create this plugin.

Envato Marketplace

The Envato Marketplaces allow anyone to buy or sell digital goods like WordPress themes, background music, After Effects project files, Flash templates and much more. The marketplaces are home to a thriving community of over 450,000 users, authors and buyers and every day hundreds of new files are added.

Why the price tag?

This plugin wasn’t free to develop, but I really think it will help some of my sites make more money. It’s only $5 for pre-paid customers. Think about it, all you will need to cover the cost of buying this plugin is make 1 referral through the envato affiliate program. I think if you use this plugin on the right site you could make back the purchase cost very quickly. So because this plugin will make you money, I want to try and recover some of the cost I spent to make it.

Check out this plugin in action: Demo

Click here to buy The Envato Affiliate Premium Site search WordPress Plugin from Code Canyon.

Envato Affiliate?

If you are an Envato affiliate and you want to make some money promoting our plugin feel free to use the banner we made for this project below. Also we would love to read some reviews about the plugin.

Where do you go to find helpful plugins?  I click “Plugins > Add New” from the dashboard.  That’s great for ease-of-use.  However, that database is limited to GNU/GPL licensed plugins accepted into the WordPress database.

These plugins are all not in the WordPress Plugin database and therefore, are not easily found.  Despite their obscurity, they offer some great services to the WordPress admin.

White Label WordPress Branding Plugin

Replace the WP logo from the login screen and dashboard to rebrand WordPress for your clients.

Like/Unlike Posts

Powered by WizyLike, this plugin adds a like/unlike functionality to each post.  Perfect for a community news site.

Font Replacement

Substitutes standard fonts with one of over 30 Cufon and Google Fonts.  Cufon is all the rage, take advantage of it with this killer plugin.

WP Geo Tagger

Integrate Google Maps by adding location information to posts.  This is an excellent option for community or event blogs.

Paypal File Download

Allows you to easily set up pay-per-download files.  I’ve tried to set this up before and this plugin would have been really nice to have back then.

Sliding Contact Form

Creates a slick, sliding contact form on any WordPress page.

Word and Phrase Spinner

Generates new content from existing stuff to prevent duplicate content issues with search engines.

Font Uploader

For those without HTML or CSS knowledge, this plugin allows you to upload your own fonts and apply them to any section of your site.

Social Pop

Allows for the easy insertion of 26 social bookmarking and sharing links below the content area of WordPress.

Search and Replace

This handy plugin lets you search for text and automatically replace with something else.  Can be used for text or links (read: automatic affiliate link conversion)

Click the image to check out any of these plugins.

In a recent post, we hinted at the development of an exclusive jQuery powered WordPress Plugin. Today is the day! We have released the brand new, completely unique WordPress Constant Footer Plugin.

It uses a jQuery plugin combined with the simplicity of a WordPress plugin to create a super-simple sticky footer. The footer sticks to the bottom of the browser window regardless of how/where the user scrolls.

Complete with an easy-to-use dashboard settings page, the WP admin can change the opacity, color and height of the footer. Utilizing a slick fade-in effect, the plugin allows any HTML to be entered by the admin and displayed to the public.

Use the plugin to:

• Showcase new content
• Display site news
• Encourage Twitter, RSS or other social media following
• Offer premium, unique advertising space
• Flag user attention for breaking news
• And anything else you come up with!
• (Tell us how you’re using the plugin in the comments belows)

The plugin is completely free, although donations are much appreciated.  Here are some helpful links:

Plugin Homepage | Demo | Documentation

Inclusion in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory is pending.  Until then, you can download the plugin from the homepage or by clicking here.

This plugin was developed by Pingable.org and released to our community of readers first.  We like you that much!  As with any new plugin, be patient as we work out any bugs.

Here are some screenshots:

Converting users is as important as ever before. With millions of websites being created every day, how can you compete? Here’s how: convert your readers like a pro with these essential tools.

Meebo Toolbar

A sweet little bar that hangs out at the bottom of all your pages. It is available as a WordPress plugin or standalone code. You can customize the bar with anything you might need to convert users like RSS links, and integration with your Facebook page.

Wibiya Toolbar
Another handy toolbar with some different content and style options. Both tools can help convert users, it’s up to you to decide which one is best for you.

WP Greet Box

This handy plugin will insert a discrete box below the heading but above the content with dynamically generated message to readers based on their referral source. See it in action here: 43 Ways to Promote your content like a pro.

Smart Sharing Plugin

This plugin creates a box that can be aligned to the left or right of your site with important sharing links.  It scrolls with the user, meaning they are always reminded to switch from “casual visitor” to “avid follower”.

WordPress is quickly becoming a fully-featured, powerful and dynamic content management system and not just a blogging tool.  The geniuses over at WordPress.org are continually improving and expanding the codex while miraculously protecting the speed, simplicity and ease of WordPress.

In tandem with the developers, theme creators are continually pushing the limits of WordPress to new heights.  As we move into this new era of WordPress uses, the idea of creating e-commerce applications in WordPress is expanding rapidly.  We looked at the current options and selected our top choices when selecting a WordPress shopping cart.

WordPress Shopping Cart

Key Features:

• A full shopping cart (not just a payment processor), allowing users to add and remove products from their cart and then “checkout”.
• Integrates with WordPress Affiliate Software
• Integrates with Paypal and 2Checkout
• Integrates with Nexgen gallery

Check out the forum for some insight into user experiences with this plugin.

ShopperPress Theme/Plugin

Key Features

• Affiliate support
• Support for drop shipping products
• Software or product download support
• Free trial version

Check out the forum for some insight into user experiences with this plugin.

Zack Design WordPress Shopping Cart

There hasn’t been an update on this page since 2007 but we thought we’d let you make your own decision.

WordPress E-Commerce Plugin

Key Features

• Boasting 500,000 downloads
• Integrates with Social Networking services
• In addition to Paypal, offers Google Checkout, Payment Express and Authorize.net as payment gateway options
• Single page checkout designed to help distractable customers

Check out the forum for some insight into user experiences with this plugin.

eShop Shopping Cart Plugin

Key Features

• Uses the existing WordPress framework (products are posts or pages)
• Downloadable products and download statistics
• Stock control
• Works with WPMU
• Supports Authorize.net, Paypal, Payson, eProcessingNetwork, Webtopay, iDEAL and Cash/Cheque

Check out the forum for some insight into user experiences with this plugin.

YAK for WordPress

Key Features

• Also turns posts into products
• Product categories (using post categories)
• Order sorting
• Promotion support
• SSL Support

Check out the forum for some insight into user experiences with this plugin.

We recently reported on Wibiya, an exceptional tool for WordPress blogs (and other sites but we don’t care about them).  At the time, Wibiya was in beta mode, asking you to request an invitation to use the plugin.  Just recently, Wibiya took two pretty big steps.

First, Wibiya is now open to the public.  Simply click “Get it now!” to sign up.  You will select a few settings like applications to include on your toolbar, then download a plugin zip file.  Previously you were given a raw PHP file that required manual upload (instead of the handy “upload new plugin” option in your WordPress Dashboard.

Second, Wibiya updated the toolbar altogether.  If you already had the Wibiya toolbar, you need to reinstall it.  The toolbar now includes a couple more applications and a better interface for adding/removing them.

So what does the Wibiya toolbar do?

• Integrates Facebook into your blog
• Integrates Twitter, allowing users to tweet about you right from your blog!
• Offers easy navigation of random and previous/next posts – increasing pageviews and retaining visitors.
• Lets readers chat with other visitors
• Lets you communicate with visitors by setting up announcements (popup or not)
• Decrease reasons for visitors to leave by allowing social networking right on your site (instead of leaving to do so)
• And tons more applications (translations, real time users and more added all the time)

Like we said, we don’t care about anything that doesn’t involve WordPress, but Wibiya also works with Blogger, Drupal, Ning, Joomla and more.  Check out the new Wibiya toolbar here.

This question was asked in the WordPress forum here.  Since nobody had answered Michael at press time, I thought it might be helpful to find the answer and publish it here.

Solution:

Option 1) Use robots.txt to prohibit search engines form indexing a page.  Simply add this to your robots.txt file.  If you don’t have a robots.txt file, simply create one in your go-to text editor.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /category/page-title

These two lines will a) let search engines know this rule applies to all robots and b) tell them they cannot index the page located at “category/page-title”.

Option 2) Use this handy plugin.  The Ultimate Noindex Nofollow Plugin by Jonathan Kemp.  With this plugin you can choose pages that the plugin will identifying as non-indexable in the robots.txt file.  There are many other options with this plugin including adding the rel=”nofollow” tag to various places in your WordPress code.

Option 3) Use a meta tag to order search engines to not index a particular page. The meta tag looks like this:

<META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW”>

We have built a ton of WordPress sites. Seriously, hundreds. Maybe thousands. Over time, we have developed a short list of go-to plugins. No matter what kind of WordPress site we’re making (a blog, a community, etc.) we start by downloading the latest version of these plugins. In our humble opinion, their features should be built into the WordPress Core.

Here is our list of must-have WordPress plugins:

1. Alex King’s 404 Notifier. Ever wonder how many visitors are lost to a 404 page?  Let’s face it, your site URL’s change from time to time, and people incorrectly link to you.  Have the chance to fix that by being notified when a 404 error is received.
2. Fix Database Plugin. Database errors happen, and they slow down your website’s load time.  This plugin identifies errors and attempts to fix them.
3. Auto-Hyperlink URLs. This can be a real time saver.  This plugin automatically generates hyperlinks of the URL’s you place in posts.
4. Google (XML) Sitemaps. What good is your exceptionally informative blog if nobody finds it?  Step one to SEO is making sure the search engines are indexing your content regularly.  Just make sure your robots.txt file is updated accordingly, this plugin does not address this.
5. Sexy Bookmarks. This is the same plugin we use below our posts. (And they happen to be using the same theme as us).  Super easy to setup with a handy AJAX settings page.
6. Advanced Exerpt. This is the simplest way to modify what the “get_the_excerpt” template tag generates.  You can change word count and even what html tags are dropped from the excerpt.
7. Contact Form 7. The most versatile and easy to setup contact form plugin.  It’s a little tricky to figure out the first few times, but once that time has passed, it is super easy to use.
8. Akismet. Comes pre-installed in WordPress – but you have to set it up before it works.  Saves loads of time by auto-identifying SPAM comments.
9. Twitter Tools.  The easiest (and most comprehensive) way to integrate your Twitter account and your WordPress blog.
10. Wibiya.  Read this post about why we love the Wibiya plugin/toolbar.