Top 10 Web Design Tips

Tip 10. Put contact information on your pages.

The Web is interactive and dynamic, and you should welcome comments on your pages. Also, if there is a broken link or other problem, your readers can let you know, easily.

Why Put Contact Information on Your Site
Mail Links on Your Web Site

One of the most common things on a Web page is contact information. When you write a Web page, it is good form to put some way for your readers to contact you.

You have two options to create contact information. You can create a mail link that opens an email application. Or you can create a form that acts as the contact link for your site. How you choose depends upon both yourself and your reader.

What to know about your readers:

• Are they willing to fill out a Web form?
• Do they use a Web browser that is connected to an email client?
• Do they contact you for specific questions?
• Are answers expected?
• What to know about yourself:

Do you want to know their email address?

Do you want the questions "pre-sorted"?
Are you worried about "spam" or just getting too much mail?
Do you have the resources to answer all the mail you receive?
Once you understand what you and your readers want, you can better choose from the two solutions: an email link or a Web form.
To create a link on your Web site that opens an email window, you simply use a "mailto:" link. For example:

<a href="mailto:html.guide@about.com">Send email to your HTML Guide</a>But what if you want to send email to more than one address? If you just want to send it To: multiple people, simply separate the email addresses with a comma. For example:

<a href="mailto:email1@about.com, email2@about.com">But there's more, you can also set up your mail link with a cc, bcc, and subject. Treat these elements as if they were arguments on a CGI. First you put the To address as above. Follow this with a question mark (?) and then the following:

cc=emailaddress for a Cc
bcc=emailaddress for a Bcc
subject=subject text for a Subject
If you want multiple elements, separate each with an ampersand (&). For example:

<a href="mailto:html.guide@about.com? »
bcc=gethelp@about.com »
&subject=testing">But using mailto links can lead to "spam". Many spam programs are out there that surf Web sites harvesting email addresses. In fact, that's one of the most common ways that spammers get email addresses. And even if you don't get a lot of spam, or have a good filter, you might still get more email than you can handle. I know that some of the About.com Guides get more than 100 non-spam email messages a day.

In this situation, it can be helpful to pre-sort the email with a Web form. Using a form also has the advantage of not (always) printing an email address on the Web page for spammers to harvest.

The advantages to using a form for your contact mail are many. Some of the most common reasons are:

• to collect specific information from customers
• to hide email addresses from spam harvesters
• to pre-categorize email for easier answering
• Set up your form using a CGI to send the answers to you via email. Learn to write an HTML form. Once you have a form, you'll need a CGI to send the results to you. Learn to write a CGI.

If you don't have access to a CGI directory on your Web server, there are lots of free CGIs that send form results to you via email. There are three good form to email CGIs listed on the Free CGIs page.

The Web Design / HTML at About.com Contact Solution
Mail Links on Your Web Site

On the Web Design @ About.com site, my readers are somewhat willing to fill out a Web form, but About.com prides itself on being run by "real people", and a form is somewhat impersonal. I also believe that it is fairly common to have an email client associated with a Web browser. Most people write to me with specific questions and do expect answers.

I am not so concerned with knowing my readers email addresses, except as it's needed to answer their questions. Having the questions pre-sorted would be helpful, but it's not required. I am somewhat concerned with getting "spam" from my Web site. And I usually have the resources I need to answer the mail that I do receive.

As I said before, About.com offers "real people" to answer questions and help about a topic. While my readers might be willing to fill out a form to get their questions answered, it isn't as personable as email. So, I needed to have a link to email.

I have a link to my byline at the top of each article. And from there (and on my home page) there is a link to email me. The email me page has more than just contact information, it acts as a filter to help people find answers to the more common questions. I believe that it is important for my customers to find what they are looking for, and for the most part, they aren't setting out to email me. They just have a question that they haven't been able to find the answer to anywhere else.

Armed with this information, I built my contact page with a list of frequently asked questions first. Then there is a pointer to my forums. There is nearly always someone in the forums, even when I'm asleep or at my day job. Finally, there is a link to my email address. I also include valuable instructions to follow to be sure that you get the answer you're looking for when you write to me. While I don't like getting the spam, the real email messages are worth it.

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