A contact form is the backbone of a company’s website, especially if the business relies on the leads coming from the website. It may happen sometimes that the contact form on your WordPress website stops working suddenly. This may leave you with no clue at all about what’s going on.
Here, I have shared some common reasons why contact forms on your WordPress website may not be working, along with the steps to resolve them.
#1 Email Is Not Being Sent
This is one of the most common issues with web forms on a WordPress site. From the outside, it appears that the form has been submitted, but the email is never received. This can really hurt your business because you may not receive any complaints from users, who believe that your form is working, but no one is actually submitting their information. On the user’s side, they may think that the form is submitted and an email is sent to the business owner, but it’s never received.
How to fix it?
Ensure that the “From” email address matches your domain (e.g., name@yourdomain.com).
Install an SMTP plugin like “FluentSMTP” that comes for free and configure it with the help of your web hosting provider.
#2 Forms Not Submitting
Another common problem that may occur with the contact form on your WordPress site is that the form is unable to submit at all. This is relatively straightforward. The users can see the error when they attempt to submit the form. Fortunately, they can report the problem to you, and you can take the necessary steps to fix it. Usually, this error occurs due to conflicts between plugins or code.
Here’s how it’s fixed:
- Switch to the default WordPress theme temporarily to see if the problem is theme-related.
- Disable all the plugins and activate them one by one to see if the form works again.
- Disable other scripts or optimize your code to resolve conflicts.
Since the attempts mentioned above may involve complications and require technical skills, it’s recommended that you hire a professional WordPress developer to resolve the issue.
#3 Display Issues
Not so common, misalignment of form fields is yet another issue that can impact your WordPress site’s forms. Of course, a website with such design issues may not look professional and need immediate attention.
Typically, this type of design issue arises with contact forms due to CSS errors.
Check your theme’s CSS and troubleshoot the form styles for mobile responsiveness.
- Use proper HTML structure to ensure the form aligns with your layout.
- Validate your code to avoid missing or mismatched tags.
- Again, this may require extensive investigation; you can hire a WordPress expert to fix this form immediately.
#4 Emails Receiving in Spam
This is a common issue that many WordPress webmasters encounter. The emails sent to the administrator after form submission often go to spam instead of the regular inbox. Fortunately, the solution to this problem is straightforward to implement.
Install an SMTP plugin like “FluentSMTP” that comes for free and configure it with the help of your web hosting provider.