Contact forms are a simple way for prospective clients and guests to get in touch with your business. However, the downside to having an accessible contact form page is that everyone – and anything – can submit a form. If you’ve noticed a significant increase in spam form submissions, read further for more information!
Why Spam Is Dangerous
One of the most harmful parts of receiving consistent spam is the phishing attempts. Though many spam messages tend to be poorly written, there are a few that can seem pretty convincing and invite you to click on a link that appears to be rather benign. If you manage a contact form for a client and both of you receive these forms in your email inbox, the likelihood of a successful phishing attempt increases with every contact form submission. This is because clients are not as well-versed when it comes to spotting phishing forms and may fall victim to it much more easily than a digital marketing specialist may.
Another way spam contact form submissions are harmful is their direct effect on your time, resources, and data tracking accuracy. You’ll likely review every contact form submission you receive, and if you are sifting through handfuls of spam forms per week, you are wasting time you could be spending on other digital marketing tasks. On top of this, conversion tracking tools like Google Tag Manager can’t differentiate between valid contact form submissions and spam ones. So, if you noticed a spike in contact form conversions, but the forms were primarily spam, it affects your overall data, which in turn interferes with the accuracy of your monthly, quarterly, and annual reports.
Reasons Why Your Contact Form Is Receiving Spam
Below are three of the most common reasons why your contact form has been recently flooded with spam.
You’re Getting Found!
A sudden influx of spammy contact form submissions ultimately indicates your website is getting found organically on SERPs. With higher organic traffic comes more individuals and bots who are interacting with the content on your website. Well-optimized pages are attractive to bots – they can easily spot contact form pages and flood your submission inbox accordingly. In a way, suddenly receiving a great deal of spam is a good indicator of your SEO efforts working as intended.
You Are Not Using reCAPTCHA
reCAPTCHA is a service provided by Google that helps prevent websites from experiencing an excessive amount of spam traffic and form submissions. Essentially, reCAPTCHA is a bot-detection test. You’ll either have to click a checkbox in order to verify that you are indeed a human user, or complete a visual task of some sort that asks you to identify things like bicycles within a grid of multiple pictures. Installing reCAPTCHA is a relatively simple process and can decrease your spam submissions over time.
You Aren’t Utilizing a Spam Prevention Plugin
Website hosting platforms like WordPress have valuable plugins that help minimize spam submissions. On WordPress, you can build custom contact forms through plugins like WPForms, which already come equipped with spam prevention coding. Other WordPress tools like Akismet are available for commercial use by paying a monthly fee.
Connect With An SEO Expert At Boston Web Marketing
Boston Web Marketing is a digital marketing agency that understands how to protect and manage your website and digital brand. We’re happy to address all of your SEO-related needs, ranging from social media management to paid advertisement management and website design. Reach out to us today for more information about our services!