Comments on: Are You Contactable?

By: Telling It Like It Is

Telling It Like It Is — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:26:33 +0000

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.

By: Justin Bowers

Justin Bowers — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:41:59 +0000

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?

By: Alan Bradford

Alan Bradford — Thu, 31 May 2007 00:50:57 +0000

Great advice. I just added a contact page to my blog - and Wordpress couldn't have made it any easier. Check it out.

By: Bev Schweigert

Bev Schweigert — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:38:42 +0000

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

By: Fred Black

Fred Black — Wed, 30 May 2007 17:56:04 +0000

Thanks for the prompt… just finished adding a contact page.
Fred

By: rod/techfold.com

rod/techfold.com — Wed, 30 May 2007 17:13:18 +0000

One more thought: add a Meembome widget to your blog. I just put one in my side bar and contact page today.

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 30 May 2007 13:25:40 +0000

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.

By: Roberta

Roberta — Wed, 30 May 2007 11:50:14 +0000

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?

By: Jacob Share

Jacob Share — Wed, 30 May 2007 11:42:15 +0000

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.

By: Rob O.

Rob O. — Wed, 30 May 2007 10:51:54 +0000

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.

By: Rhys

Rhys — Wed, 30 May 2007 08:15:47 +0000

After 5 years of blogging, I only added a contact page about a week ago. It’s terrible I know!

By: Tomaz Mencinger

Tomaz Mencinger — Wed, 30 May 2007 07:06:35 +0000

This reminder came just at the right time when I started my first wordpress blog. Thanks!

By: Amit

Amit — Wed, 30 May 2007 06:56:52 +0000

Wow! I was looking for this cuz even I was unsure abt posting my contact details on my blog. Thanks darren!

By: Vittore photographer

Vittore photographer — Wed, 30 May 2007 04:33:21 +0000

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.

By: Cutie

Cutie — Wed, 30 May 2007 04:01:25 +0000

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

By: Deb

Deb — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:47:27 +0000

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.

By: Wendy Piersall

Wendy Piersall — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:42:38 +0000

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? ;)

By: Ronald Huereca

Ronald Huereca — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:40:15 +0000

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.

By: MillionDollarJourney.com

MillionDollarJourney.com — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:18:35 +0000

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

By: Lori

Lori — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:13:33 +0000

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.