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.
There is also a far more boffin technical reason, and it involves something called “SMTP”. I have included some quick information about this reason below. [Note: I don’t expect you to care to know or want to know about things like “DMARC”, “PHP Mail”, etc, but if you’re keen to learn, a quick Google search will tell you all about them]:
Most email services now require DMARC, DKIM, and SPF records when receiving emails. When you don’t have those set up, most email services will simply bounce these emails.
WordPress and other website platforms send email using PHP Mail. This is a php extension that mimics an email server. But under the hood the email does not contain any validation.
This is why you use a SMTP Plugin (or similar method if not using WordPress) to guarantee deliverability.
The problem that some website owners are having, is that whoever is meant to be looking after their website (eg. a Webmaster) is not keeping up with the changes to the rules (not that they’re exactly ‘rules’… they are more-so ‘technology changes’). In this case, the technology challenge is that:
Email Services (many of them) no longer accept spoof emails, and if your website is not yet using a suitable solution (like mentioned above), things will (and may already have) stopped working as they used to.
How often do you check that the online forms on your website are working?
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 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
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.