How often do you check that the online forms on your website are working? I don’t just mean, “Can people submit them?”, I’m asking, “Are you checking that you’re receiving the form submissions; as in, checking that they are being delivered to your email?”
No matter what platform your website is built on, the code changes from time to time in the background, including when security updates are done. This can result in forms breaking.
If your website forms break, and you are not aware of it, you won’t receive form submissions and you’ll therefore be missing (not receiving) important potential new customer enquiries. As in, you’ll be missing out on new sales opportunities.
Note: Some people who create websites forget (or don’t bother) testing online forms when they launch websites. If your website has been recently launched, it is a very good idea to check for yourself that the forms are working correctly.
Testing your website online forms is easy. Simply fill them out, submit them, and then check your email to see if they have been received.
How to Fix Forms that are not Sending Submissions to your Email
We encourage our clients to check (test) that their website forms are submitting and being received to their email every few months. We also check (test) this for our clients each time we do security updates.
If you are not receiving online form enquiry submissions sent from your website, there are a few things you can do:
- Check your spam/junk folder to make sure they haven’t been flagged as spam by your Email Program.
- If they are not in the spam/junk folder, contact whoever created your website. Tell them the problem and ask them to investigate. They will then need to do some tests and report back to you. They may then tell you that a SMTP Plugin needs to be set up and configured. Information about them and why SMTP Plugins are important is here.
- Your website provider will then need to work with whoever looks after your email. Between the two of them they will need to set up and configure the ‘SMTP Plugin’ within your website. Once set up it will need to be tested. If all is set up and configured correctly, forms should then submit correctly and be received to your email inbox.
- If you still find your online website forms are not being received, contact us and we’ll help.
Tip: Ask your website person if a dashboard has been set up within your website that keeps a record of all form submissions. With this in place, you can regularly login to your website and view all submissions.
We set this up within all websites we create.