An obvious way to contact you
If a stranger is ready to talk and cannot find a phone or an email, the visit ends. They should not have to guess which button works.
What this is
A clear contact path is a phone number, an email address, or a link that opens the phone or mail app. It should be text, not buried in a picture. The home page or the Contact page is the right place.
A form can sit beside that path. The form needs a real way to send: an action, a method, or a handler. A form with fields and no path is a shell. We never submit your form to test it. We only read the markup.
A “Contact” link that goes to a page with no phone and no email is not a path. It is a label.
Why it matters for trust
The moment of trust is often the moment they decide to write. If the only option is a form that looks unfinished, they assume the firm will not reply. A visible phone or email is a promise that a person exists.
It also helps when they are on a phone. Tapping a number is easier than pinching a screenshot of a business card.
Pick one number and one inbox and use them everywhere a stranger looks: the header or footer, the Contact page, and the email you send after a meeting. A form can be extra. It should not be the only path, and it should not pretend to send if nothing is wired. If you are the person who answers, say so next to the address. “Write Jane” is clearer than a nameless info box.
Do this
- Put one phone number and one email in text on the Contact page. Repeat at least one of them on the home page.
- Use a tel: link on the phone and a mailto: link on the email so a phone can act on them.
- If you use a form, give it an action or a known handler and a submit button. If you cannot wire it this week, remove it and keep the phone and email.
- Use the same number in the footer. Two different numbers look like two firms.
- Do not put the only phone number inside an image.
- Click Contact from the home page and confirm a stranger can reach you without an account.
How Free Trust Score treats this
Free Trust Score helps when a phone, email, or tel/mailto link is on the home page or Contact. It hurts when there is no contact path, or when a form is on the page with no way to send it.
Seeing a link is not the same as sending a message. The scan does not fill in the form or press submit.
Related
See what a stranger can already see.
Run a Free Trust Score, or book a short fit call if you want help reading it.