Idle Profit writes a post with 5 Reasons you need to have a contact page – I think all 5 reasons are valid.
Plus it’s just bad manners not to and can create a spammy/cheap and nasty impression when you don’t.
Plus it’s just good business sense to give customers, potential partners and those that can help promote you a way to get in touch.
I don’t mind if it’s a purpose built contact page, a link in your sidebar or some other form of contact – but I really can’t think of a reason why a blogger wouldn’t have one – even a popular blogger who gets hit with thousands of emails a day or an anonymous blogger (who can have a contact method that retains their anonymity) should or they could be limiting their potential to grow their blog.
Can you tell this is a pet peeve of mine?
Darren – for low overhead, privacy-protecting options, have a look at Kontactr:
http://techfold.com/2007/05/15/kontactr-web-contact-forms/
WuFoo is another option mentioned in the comments.
-R
I am curious, if you have a business blog should you duplicate your contact us page?
I use the contact us form from http://www.contactify.com/
It keeps your email address private and has word verification also.
I do think it gives a more personal feel, as if they can trust you.
Oh yea, a contact form is a MUST for any blog. For you new bloggers out there, I would suggest that you use a contact “form” instead of showing your email to the public to reduce spam.
FT
Hi Darren,
I can slightly tell this is a pet peeve of yours :). I wrote an article a few months ago about how to be more available to your readers. Within this article, I actually assumed that all bloggers had the common sense to have at least one method of contact. In your example, however, some bloggers are not even taking this crucial step. It is very important (no matter how popular or unpopular the blog is) to have some method of contact.
When I ran my birthday contest in April, I had to stipulate that all entrants have a way to get in touch on their sites. And sure enough, I had to give one of the prizes to a runner-up because there was no way to contact one of the winners. I even blogged about it linking to her and I STILL never heard from her!
I’ve literally seen publishers have to get in touch with bloggers about book deals via a comment on a site because of a lack of a contact form.
A year ago, this would be barely acceptable. Today, there are enough talented bloggers that a publisher (insert relevant word such as ‘client’ ‘customer’ ‘reader’ or ’employer’ here) will skip you and go to the next blogger if they can’t find a confidential way to get in touch.
Unless you are only blogging to watch yourself type, there is no reason not to have a contact page or at least an email address posted.
Gee – Darren – do you think I share this pet peeve of yours? ;)
I fixed this over the weekend. I see the argument for a form but I am so new and get so little (but growing) traffic that for this go around I created an email account just for my blog-related needs. If/when things pick up I can revisit the form issue but I don’t want to invest my time there for the moment.
In previous themes, I make the contact Page but getting confused how to insert the contact page in my current Theme. I use WP Contact Form and It’s very easy to use, I really recommended to use it. It’s really important, I getting much info from my web visitor. I even get the info about where I should get the content and make me ‘getting touch’ with my visitors
To be contactable is important for your present and future business. Obviously to reduce spam is raccomende to use a contact “form”. You wil be surprise how many contact a blog can generate. Sometimes too much to be handled.
Wow! I was looking for this cuz even I was unsure abt posting my contact details on my blog. Thanks darren!
This reminder came just at the right time when I started my first wordpress blog. Thanks!
After 5 years of blogging, I only added a contact page about a week ago. It’s terrible I know!
Yup, this is a big annoyance for me too! Nothing more aggravating than not having any means to contact a blog’s author. Sure, you can just post a comment to any random blog entry just to get a message across, but that’s pretty messy.
We’ve provided two different ways to contact us privately and still only very rarely see any spam as a result of this.
I agree, this is a must and it’s worked well for me. In particular, it’s hard to take a site seriously if it has no contact page, no email address displayed and the author is clearly a pseudonym.
I don’t have a contact page, but I do have a little place on my main page that says “tip your editor” with an email link…..does that work?
My blog, which was originally started for a directory, has contact info. I just assume if it is an interactive blog that it should have contact info somewhere.
Being a directory blog, which there are a ton of them, I really hate going on to other directories and not being able to find contact info. I have gone as far as doing a whois lookup to see if I can track down an email.
Unless the site is totally made for adsense, it should have contact info.
A pet peeve of mine as well.
One more thought: add a Meembome widget to your blog. I just put one in my side bar and contact page today.
Thanks for the prompt… just finished adding a contact page.
Fred
I totally agree that each blog should have a contact page.
I’ve been blogtipping each month and there have been times when I’ve wanted to blogtip someone, but have no way to let them know that I’ve done it because there’s no way to contact them! I could leave them a comment on one of their posts, but I want to contact them directly!
Bev
Great advice. I just added a contact page to my blog – and WordPress couldn’t have made it any easier. Check it out.
Hey Darren. Great blog.
I’ve come across you several times, but read through your blog in more detail while searching for a hack where I can create a contact/subscribe contact form into my blogger page. Do you know of any?
I’ve been trying to find a contact form, sans spam, for my blogger site. I’ve been searching for four hours already and everything I find is about WordPress, which I don’t use. I also don’t know about “plug-in’s”, so I’m still searching for a really good contact me form. Us blogging newbies need all the help we can get.