Is it a Mistake to Include Your Email Address on Your Website?
Joel
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Your email address. To include or not to include. This is a conversation we regularly have with clients when doing a CRO (conversion rate optimisation) and tracking audit. The short answer: we firmly believe the answer is ‘NO’, in 99% of instances — you should not prominently include your email address on your business website. Read on to find out why.
Why you should NOT include your email address on your website.
1. It’s impossible to accurately track conversions when people send you a normal email (sure, we can often track ‘clicks’ on your email address, but that’s far from a guarantee that the email enquiry was ever sent!). And conversion tracking is an absolutely vital part of our ongoing AdWords campaign maintenance and optimisation. Without proper Google Ads tracking, our campaign optimisation is hamstrung, so this can be a conversion and ROI killer.
2. Most customers browsing your website would just prefer to use a quick enquiry form. It’s generally faster and easier, and that way they never have to even leave your website, and know what info they need to provide.
3. It will drive you mad when customers getting in contact via email keep forgetting to include important details. Like their phone number, suburb name, and so on. Quick enquiry forms with compulsory form fields make sure that you never miss these important details, saving everyone time and maximising efficiency.
4. Do you want to put out the welcome mat for spam bots? Including a real email address with clickable mailto link (like this: mailus@spammerswelcome.com) is an open invitation to spam bots, and includes ZERO ability to stop spam bots from sending your email and filling your inbox. Sure, your spam filter will hopefully catch some of these, but do you really want to make it easy for spam bots and constantly have an overflowing spam folder? And why would you, when a quick enquiry form works so much better in most instances?
Email addresses and online enquiries — the bottom line:
- In 99% of instances there is no reason to include your email address on your website, and using a quick enquiry form is MUCH better in almost every way (tracking, and conversion rate optimisation, collecting the required info, usability and spam minimisation).
- Go right ahead and DELETE that email address from your website. Instead, direct people to your online enquiry forms, and make sure your quick enquiry forms are ‘next level’ good. Fast, easy and super-compelling. In a future guide, we’ll show you how to avoid the top mistakes that businesses make on their contact us pages, and how to make your online enquiry forms next level. Follow us on Facebook to make sure you don’t miss it.
