A preoccupation of many business owners is getting more visitors to their website. Often they spend a small fortune in money and time to do so.

But sometimes you can get better results simply by tweaking your site so that your existing visitors do the things you'd like them to do more often.

Like buying something or signing up for your newsletter.

For many of us, one of the key steps we'd like them to take is to contact us. Either give us a call, an email, or fill in a contact form.

That's often the first step to speaking and eventually to doing business together.

But the truth is that very many professionals make it rather difficult for potential clients to contact them.

Different people prefer different communication methods. So it's usually a good idea to have your phone number and email address prominently shown on your site (for example in the header).

And your “Contact Me” form should be simple and easy to find (ie it should be one of the main menu items).

In fact, I advise having a contact form at the bottom of each page where you describe your services so that if someone does want to speak to you about that particular service they can just flow straight into completing the form rather than hunting around for a button to get to it.

And your form needs to be clear and easy to use. Check out your website stats. How many people visit your “contact me” page, but don't complete the form?

Usually a very high proportion.

Sometimes it's because the form is too complex or it requires too much intrusive information. Asking for a phone number, business name and job title often worries people into thinking they're going to get a call from a salesperson.

And often the person isn't sure they're in the right place. They have a question to ask you so they go to the Contact Me page. But there's no guidance on the page as to what sort of questions you're expecting them to use that page for.

Is it for technical questions? Questions about your blog posts? Questions only about working with you?

If you don't spell it out, many people will assume they're in the wrong place and click away.

And you also need to spell out what will happen after someone completes the form. Who'll get back to them? When? What will the next steps be?

Telling people what will happen when they click “submit” will ease their anxiety about sending the form in. If they know what to expect they won't find the process so daunting.

Making these simple changes can easily increase the number of contact form submissions you get by 50%. It's an awful lot easier that trying to get 50% more visitors to your site.