How I Created a WordPress Contact Form That People Actually Use

When I first started building WordPress websites, I didn’t realize how useful a contact form could be. It’s not just a way for people to reach you. It also keeps your email address private, cuts down on spam, and makes it easier to stay organized.

Once I added a proper contact form, everything felt smoother. Visitors could get in touch without hassle, and I could manage messages all in one place.

That’s why I use WPForms. It’s simple, reliable, and takes care of the details so you can focus on your website.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to create a professional contact form in WordPress using WPForms. 🚀

Why Add a Contact Form in WordPress?

Adding a contact form to your WordPress site is a simple way to make it easier for people to reach you. Instead of copying your email address and opening their mail app, visitors can just send a message right from your website.

I’ve seen how something this small can make a big difference.

When people can easily ask questions, request quotes, or share feedback, your site feels more approachable. And you’re more likely to start real conversations and new business opportunities.

Here are a few key benefits of adding a contact form to your WordPress site:

• Cut down on spam and stay organized — A contact form helps block most automated spam that targets public email addresses, so you only get genuine messages.
• Ask for the right details upfront — You can display fields for things like position and experience level for job application forms, or product type and quantity for order forms. This helps you understand what visitors need and respond more effectively.
• Get more leads without losing visitors — People are much more likely to fill out a quick form than leave your site to send an email, especially on mobile devices.
• Look more professional — A simple, well-designed contact form feels more trustworthy than just posting your email address.
• See what people care about most — Forms help you spot patterns, like which pages visitors contact you from or what topics they ask about. This can help you adjust your content and make your site work better for your audience.

The best part? WordPress makes it simple to add professional contact forms without any coding knowledge. For more advanced form strategies, check out our ultimate guide to using WordPress forms.

With that said, I’ll walk you through how to add a contact form in WordPress.

Here’s a quick overview of what I’ll cover in this guide:

• Step 1: Install and Activate the WPForms Plugin
• Step 2: Select the Simple Contact Form Template
• Step 3: Customize Your Contact Form
• Step 4: Set Up Contact Form Notification and Confirmation
• Step 5: Test Your New Contact Form
• Step 6: Embed Your Simple Contact Form on a WordPress Page
  • Show Your Contact Form Across Your Site
  • Add Your Contact Form Using a Shortcode
• Bonus Tip: Set Up WordPress Form Tracking to Improve Conversions
• FAQs: Creating and Adding Contact Forms in WordPress
• Video Tutorial: How to Create Contact Forms in WordPress
• Further Reading for Using Forms in WordPress

Step 1: Install and Activate the WPForms Plugin

For creating contact forms in WordPress, I recommend WPForms, which is the best contact form plugin for WordPress. It’s easy to use, yet powerful enough to handle just about anything you need.

I’ve personally used it on many sites over the years, and it’s always been reliable. Plus, we also use it to create our contact form here at WPBeginner.

See our detailed WPForms review to learn more about the plugin.

To get started, you need to go to the WPForms website to sign up for an account.

Just click on the ‘Get WPForms Now’ button, choose a plan, and complete the registration process. This will bring you to the WPForms dashboard, where you can access your WPForms Pro zip files and license key.

From here, you can then go to your WordPress admin area to install and activate the WPForms plugin.

To do this, simply navigate to Plugins » Add New Plugin.

On the next screen, I recommend using the search bar to quickly find the WPForms plugin.

Click the ‘Install Now’ button on the search result, and then ‘Activate.’ If you want more detailed instructions, you can check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

If you’ve purchased WPForms Pro, you’ll also need to activate your license key.

After installing the plugin, go to WPForms » Settings in your admin dashboard and enter your license key. This unlocks the Pro features and ensures you’ll get regular updates and support.

Once it’s activated, you’ll see a new WPForms menu in your WordPress dashboard.

Step 2: Select the Simple Contact Form Template

Now that you have activated WPForms, you are ready to create a contact form in WordPress.

When you first access WPForms, the setup wizard will guide you through creating your form.

If you don’t see a setup wizard, you can navigate to WPForms » All Forms in your WordPress admin panel and then click the ‘Add New’ button.

This will take you to the Setup page, where you can start by giving your form a descriptive name like “Contact Form” or “Get in Touch.”

This is for your reference only, but having clear names helps you stay organized if you create multiple forms later.

Next, you’ll choose how you will build your contact form:

• Start from scratch – Build your form on a blank canvas for complete control over the layout and fields.
• Use a pre-made template – With WPForms Pro, you get access to over 2,000 ready-made templates you can customize in minutes. WPForms Lite comes with over 60+ free form templates.
• Generate a form with AI – Let the WPForms AI Form Builder create a customizable form for you. Just describe what you need in a simple prompt, and it’ll handle the setup automatically.

If you want to use WPForms AI, you can hover over the ‘Generate With AI’ box and click the ‘Generate Form’ button.

On the next screen, you can either select from the available prompt examples or add your own custom prompt for the AI.

It will then generate the form for you, which you can see in the preview area.

For this guide, though, I’ll show you the steps using the ‘Simple Contact Form’ template. It includes all the essential fields most websites need.

While you’re browsing the templates, you might notice other popular options that could be useful for your site:

• User Registration Forms — Perfect for membership or community sites that let users sign up and create accounts.
• Online Order Forms — Great for restaurants, online shops, or service providers who want to take product or custom orders directly on their site.
• Booking Forms — Ideal for consultants, salons, or rental businesses that need to schedule appointments or reservations.
• Survey Forms — Handy for collecting customer feedback or running quick polls.
• Conversational Forms — Offer a modern, chat-like experience that boosts engagement and completion rates.

Once you’ve found the template you want to work on, you can hover over it and click ‘Use Template.’

This will take you to the WPForms drag-and-drop editor.

Step 3: Customize Your Contact Form

Now comes the fun part: making your contact form work precisely how you want it.

WPForms’ drag-and-drop builder makes this incredibly easy, even if you’ve never built a form before. Here, you can see the customization options on the left and the form preview on the right.

Now, you may notice that the Simple Contact Form template includes the Name, Email, and Comment or Message fields.

You can rearrange fields by dragging them up or down to change their order. This flexibility means you can collect exactly the information you need without overwhelming visitors.

Then, for each of those fields, you can click on it to modify its settings, change the label text, or mark it as required.

Here, I changed the Email field’s label to Email Address and enabled the email confirmation feature. This allows users to check if they have added the correct email.

To add new fields, simply drag them from the left panel onto your form. Here are some popular field additions I recommend considering:

• Phone Number field — Useful if you prefer calling leads back directly
• Dropdown menu — Great for categorizing inquiries (like “Sales,” “Support,” or “General Question”)
• Checkbox field — Perfect for newsletter signups or consent confirmations

Including a checkbox with a label like “Subscribe to our newsletter” or “Send me occasional news and updates” is a smart move. It helps you grow your email list while visitors are already engaged with your contact form.

Keep in mind that you will also need to connect your form to an email marketing service. For details, see our tutorial on how to use your contact form to grow your email list.

To add this, simply drag the Checkbox field and drop it into your form preview.

In the customization panel, you can remove the other two default choices by clicking the ‘–’ button.

Then, add your message to the remaining choice box.

Next, you’ll want to hide the ‘Checkbox’ label.

By hiding it, only your intended “Send me occasional news and updates” text appears next to the checkbox, keeping the form clean and easy to read.

To do that, you can switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab and toggle on ‘Hide Label.’

For Pro users, WPForms offers other powerful advanced options that can make your forms even more effective:

• Conditional Logic — Show or hide fields based on previous answers.
• File Upload fields — Let visitors attach documents or images.
• Payment fields — Accept payments directly through your form.

When you’re satisfied with your form fields and layout, click the ‘Save’ button.

Step 4: Set Up Contact Form Notification and Confirmation

Now that you have created your contact form, it’s essential to properly configure the form notification and form confirmation options.

Here’s a quick breakdown of each setting:

• Form notification is the email you get after someone submits the contact form on your WordPress blog.
• Form confirmation is what your website visitor sees after they submit the form. This can be a simple thank you message, a follow-up page where you’ve uploaded downloadable PDFs, or anything you’d like.

The good news is that WPForms automatically configures your form notifications right out of the box. This means you’ll start receiving email alerts as soon as someone submits your contact form, without any additional setup required.

That said, you still can configure these settings to cater to your needs.

So, let’s go to Settings » Notifications. By default, you’ll see that WPForms sends notifications to your WordPress admin email address.

You can also send notifications to multiple email addresses, so different team members get the correct inquiries. For example, sales messages can go to your sales team, while support requests go to customer service.

When adding email addresses, just be sure to separate each with a comma.

Learn more about this in our guide on how to create a contact form with multiple recipients.

On this page, you can also see other customization fields. For example, the ‘Email Subject Line’ is pre-filled with your form name. While the ‘From Name’ field is automatically populated with your site name.

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button if you make changes here.

Next, let’s switch to the ‘Confirmation’ tab to choose how visitors know you’ve received their message.

WPForms gives you three main options:

• Show a message — Display a thank-you message right on the same page.
• Show page — Send users back to the previous page or any existing page on your site, such as a custom thank-you page.
• Go to URL (Redirect) — Send visitors to any URL, on or off your site.

I recommend using a custom message for most simple contact forms since it’s immediate and doesn’t require visitors to load a new page.

If this sounds good to you, you can select ‘Message’ from the confirmation type dropdown and write your custom message in the available field.

Now, a great confirmation message doesn’t just say ‘thanks’ – it sets expectations. You can try something like: ‘Thanks for contacting us! We’ve received your message and will get back to you within 1-2 business days.’

This reassures the user that their submission was successful and informs them when to expect a response. Plus, it helps make your business feel more responsive and trustworthy.

However, redirecting users to a special page works well if you want to show related content, offer a free resource, or track conversions in Google Analytics.

And for service-based businesses, you might send users to a page that explains your typical response time and next steps.

Online stores, on the other hand, can redirect to product pages or special offers to keep the engagement going.

If you make any changes here, then make sure to click the ‘Save’ button.

Step 5: Test Your New Contact Form

Once you’ve set up your contact form, it’s time to give it a quick test.

At the top of the WPForms builder, you can click the ‘Preview’ button to see how your form will look to visitors.

On the preview screen, let’s first check that all your fields show up correctly and are easy to understand.

Then, go ahead and fill out the form using some test information. You can try skipping a required field or typing your email address incorrectly to make sure the form validation works as it should.

When everything looks good, click ‘Submit’ to see your thank-you message or confirmation page appear as expected.

Here’s what it looks like on my demo site:

Step 6: Embed Your Simple Contact Form on a WordPress Page

Now that everything is set up, it’s time to make your contact form live on your WordPress website. WPForms makes this step incredibly straightforward with its built-in embedding feature.

To get started, go ahead and click the ‘Embed’ button at the top of the form builder.

This will show you an Embed in a Page popup.

Here, you can choose between ‘Select Existing Page’ and ‘Create New Page.’

For a brand new contact page, you can select the ‘Create New Page’ option.

After that, type in a page name like “Contact Us” or “Get in Touch,” and then click ‘Let’s Go!’.

WPForms will then create the page and automatically embed your form in one smooth step. You can then write all the content you need to add context, preview the page, and publish it.

If you already have a Contact page on your site, you can simply choose ‘Select Existing Page.’

Then, in the next popup, you’ll choose where you want to add the contact form from the dropdown menu and click ‘Let’s Go!’.

This will open the page’s content editor.

From here, you can click ‘+’ to add the WPForms block.

Next, you’ll see the WPForms block added to your editor.

Simply click on the dropdown and choose the form you want to add.

WPForms will then load your contact form preview inside the block editor.

Before publishing, you can preview the page to see how it looks. Most modern WordPress themes will display the form nicely without any additional styling needed.

That said, you can also apply a theme to your form. For more information about this, see our guide on how to style and customize your WordPress form.

When you’re happy with everything, you can click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button to save your form. Then, you can visit your website to see it in action.

Here’s what the form looked like on a sample WordPress contact page:

For more details, see our guide on how to embed forms in WordPress.

Show Your Contact Form Across Your Site

For even better visibility, consider adding your contact form to your website’s sidebar or any other widget-ready area in your WordPress theme. This gives visitors easy access to contact you from any page on your site.

To do this, you need to go to Appearance » Widgets and then click the ‘Plus’ add block icon in the widget area you want to add your form.

Next, let’s search for ‘WPForms.’

Then, you can click on the ‘WPForms’ block to add it to your sidebar.

After that, you need to select your contact form from the drop-down.

This will automatically load a preview of your form.

Next, let’s click the ‘Update’ button to save your changes.

Now, you can visit your site to see your contact form live in your sidebar or other widget area.

To learn more about widgets, see our guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.

Add Your Contact Form Using a Shortcode

WPForms also comes with a WordPress contact form shortcode.

You can use this by visiting WPForms » All Forms and then copying the shortcode next to your form.

Then, all you need to do is open up the page where you want to add it and click the ‘Plus’ add block button and search for ‘Shortcode’.

Next, let’s click the ‘Shortcode’ block.

In the block, go ahead and paste the shortcode that you copied above into the box.

After that, you can click on ‘Update’ or ‘Publish,’ and your contact form will be live on your website, just like above.

To learn more about shortcodes, you’ll want to see our ultimate guide on how to add a shortcode in WordPress.

Bonus Tip: Set Up WordPress Form Tracking to Improve Conversions

Once your contact form is up and running, the next step is to understand how it’s performing so you can make it even better.

By tracking your forms, you can see, for example, which ones get the most submissions, where your visitors come from, and which pages encourage them to reach out.

This information helps you improve forms that aren’t doing as well, reduce form abandonment, and fine-tune your marketing to reach the right audience.

For instance, you might find that visitors from social media are more likely to submit your contact form than those from search engines. Or that people who visit your About page first are more likely to get in touch.

Insights like these show you where to focus your time and effort.

Form tracking can also help you spot technical issues early. If submissions suddenly drop, you’ll know it’s time to check whether your form or website is having problems.

The good news is that setting up form tracking is easier than you might think, especially with the right tools and guidance.

To get started, you can follow our step-by-step tutorial on how to set up WordPress form tracking in Google Analytics.

FAQs: Creating and Adding Contact Forms in WordPress

What’s the best contact form plugin for WordPress?

WPForms is my top pick for the best WordPress contact form plugin. It’s beginner-friendly, easy to use, and packed with helpful features and addons. You can easily build any type of form using its AI tools and drag-and-drop builder.

If you’re looking for more advanced options, Formidable Forms and Gravity Forms are great alternatives for things like multi-page forms or complex calculations.

How can I add a fillable form to my website?

The easiest way is to use a form builder plugin like WPForms. Once you install and activate it, you can choose a template, customize the fields, and then embed the form on any page or post using a shortcode or block.

Where does data from my WordPress contact form go?

That depends on the plugin you’re using. With WPForms, all form entries are saved inside your WordPress dashboard under WPForms » Entries, and you can also get them sent directly to your email. This way, you never miss a message from a visitor.

Why isn’t my WordPress contact form working?

Common reasons for contact forms not working include incorrect email settings, plugin conflicts, or missing SMTP configuration. If you’re not receiving emails, I recommend using WP Mail SMTP to make sure messages from your forms are delivered properly.

Can I add a contact form in WordPress without using a plugin?

Yes, but it involves adding custom HTML and PHP code to your theme files, which isn’t ideal for beginners. You’d also have to manage things like spam filtering, email delivery, and form styling yourself – and that can get time-consuming fast.

Using a plugin like WPForms is much safer and more reliable since it handles all of that for you automatically.

Video Tutorial: How to Create Contact Forms in WordPress

If you learn by watching, you’ll enjoy our video tutorial on how to create a contact form in WordPress:

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Further Reading for Using Forms in WordPress

I hope this article helped you create a simple contact form in WordPress.

To help you get even more out of your WordPress contact forms and website, here are some related guides that build on what you’ve just learned:

• How to Create a Secure Contact Form in WordPress
• How to Use Dynamic Field Population in WordPress to Auto-Fill Forms
• How to Add Save & Continue Functionality in WordPress Forms
• How to Block Contact Form Spam in WordPress
• How to Export WordPress Form Entries to CSV and Excel
• WordPress Form Does Not Work: Troubleshooting Tips

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