How to Pick a WordPress Form Builder Plugin

Why You Need a WordPress Form Builder

Forms are the backbone of any website. You can’t do without them. Anything that is done online requires the exchange of information through filling in and sending some kind of form. Forms simplify transactions and save a lot of time. There are forms for everything. 

To understand why you need form builders, it’s important to think about the following:

1. How Are Forms Used?

• Forms are used to facilitate transactions: signing up on a website, adding items in shopping carts, filling in shipping information, making and collecting payments. 
• Forms allow you to collect, transfer, organize, manage, and interpret various kinds of data from visitors to your website in order to help with your decision making. 
• Forms are also a great tool for generating leads and following up on them, converting them into customers, and onboarding them. 

Ideally, any information collected through forms is managed in one central, easy-to-access database. 

2. How Are Forms Built? 

Forms may look simple, but there is a lot of thought and work that goes into building them. First, you have to think about the purpose of the form, what information you want to collect, and how you want users to interact with your forms—whether through typing information or using dropdown menus. You also have to consider how you want to structure your form, and so on. 

In addition, there is the technical side: actually coding the forms on the front-end and handling their data on the back-end. Where will the information you collect be stored? How will it be accessed? What other systems will this information be linked to—for example, how will the information that is collected be linked to things like invoices, taxes, and shipping?

Needless to say, it would be a lot of work to code a WordPress form from scratch. That’s why you need a form builder plugin! The developers of these plugins devote themselves to making it easy for you to build forms so you can focus on running your business. 

What Is a WordPress Form Builder Plugin?

A WordPress form builder plugin allows you to create professional-looking forms for your website quickly and easily, without any specialized coding knowledge. You can create your form using a simple drag-and-drop interface, and then insert it into your website with a shortcode.

Some form builders come with tools to build multiple kinds of forms that serve different purposes. These are the multipurpose or all-in-one plugins. 

Other form plugins build forms that serve a very specific purpose: for example, building a cost estimation and payment form. 

What Do WordPress Form Builders Do?

Form builders are tools that allow you to create professional-looking forms. They have predefined templates with lots of design choices and customization options, so your forms can be as simple or as detailed as you want. 

• Form builders work by generating shortcode snippets that you can embed anywhere on your website or even in an email. 
• Form builders have a wide variety of settings: for example, you can receive notifications whenever someone fills out the form. 
• Form builders allow you to download reports in CSV, Excel, and PDF formats that you can then analyse and share. 

Types of Forms

There are many kinds of forms. Each can serve one or more purposes. Below are some examples. This is not an exhaustive list!

• signup forms—e.g. for new accounts or newsletters 
• login forms 
• contact forms
• registration forms—e.g. for events 
• submission forms 
• online order and payments forms
• survey forms
• feedback forms 

Best Practices: Things to Keep in Mind When Building Forms 

Forms are key to a satisfying user experience.  

• When building a form, keep it simple. Less is always more. Remove unnecessary form fields to avoid overwhelming users. Focus on getting the information you need at that particular moment.
• Make your questions simple. Don’t make users type too much. 
• All your forms should be SSL encrypted. The same goes for your WordPress website. Users want to know their data will be secure.
• 80% of users do all their online activities on mobile, so your forms should be easy to use on mobile devices. Think of readable font sizes, large buttons, auto-completion, and showing the password as the user is typing instead of masking it. 
• Use multistep forms instead of single-step forms. It makes it easier for users to complete filling in the information you request from them. 
• Use conditional logic to hide fields you don’t need. 
• Avoid CAPTCHAs. They inconvenience the user. Controlling spam is your responsibility, not your users’.