Contact Us Page: What to Include, What the Law Says and How to Test It

A contact us page has one job: make it easy for someone who has already decided to get in touch to actually do it. That sounds simple, yet it is the page we find broken most often when we audit small business websites. This guide covers what a good contact page includes, what UK law says a business site must show, the mistakes that quietly lose enquiries, and how to test yours in five minutes.

What is a contact us page for?

A contact us page turns a ready visitor into an enquiry. By the time someone opens it, they have read enough to want to talk to you. The page should give them the quickest route that suits them (a call, a message, an email or a form), answer the last practical questions such as where you work and when you are open, and confirm they are dealing with a real business.

What should a contact us page include?

Most small business contact pages need the same short list.

• A phone number that dials when tapped. On a phone, the number should open the dialler with one tap.
• An email address that opens an email. Written out in full, so people can copy it as well as tap it.
• A short form. Name, a way to reply, and a box for the message. Add one or two questions only if you genuinely need them to reply well.
• A messaging option if you use one. Plenty of customers would rather send a quick message than fill in a form, so on the trade sites we build, click to call and a WhatsApp button sit on every page.
• Where you work. The towns or area you cover, and your address if customers visit you.
• Opening hours and response time. “We reply the same working day” sets expectations and reduces chasing.
• Your business details. The legal information covered in the next section.
• A line of reassurance. A review, an accreditation or “no obligation, no hard sell” near the form helps people press send.

The contact page is not the only place this belongs. Put your phone number and a contact button on every page, in the header on mobile, so nobody has to hunt for it. We cover this in our guide to homepage design.

What does UK law say a business website must show?

Two sets of rules apply to most UK business websites. This is a plain summary, not legal advice.

The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 require a business offering goods or services online to make certain details easy to find and permanently available. They include your business name, your geographic address (a real address, not only a PO box), contact details including an email address, your company registration number if you are on a register, and your VAT number if you are VAT registered.

If you trade as a limited company, the Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015 also require your website to show your registered company name, registered number, the part of the UK the company is registered in and your registered office address. GOV.UK’s guidance for limited companies sets this out in plain English.

The contact page, or the footer of every page, is the natural home for these details. It also helps people trust you: a full business name and address is one of the first things a careful customer checks.

What are the most common contact page mistakes?

These are all from real audits we ran this year. None of the owners knew.

Links that do the wrong thing

On one retailer’s site, the email address in the footer was coded as a phone link, so tapping it tried to dial a number. The phone link next to it had two numbers squeezed into one, so it dialled neither. It had never worked.

Form options that do not fit the customer

The same site’s contact form asked customers to choose their country from three options: Austria, Viet Nam and Japan. There was no United Kingdom. It was a Kent timber yard.

Forms that ask too much

Every extra required field is another reason to give up. Nielsen Norman Group’s usability research on contact pages recommends keeping a contact form to three to five fields. Baymard Institute found the same pattern in online shops: the average checkout in 2024 had 11.3 form fields, when most need only eight. If you need a postcode or a budget to reply properly, ask. If you are only asking because the form builder offered the box, remove it.

Messages that go nowhere

A form can look perfect and still send enquiries to an old email address, a former employee or a spam folder. If you have not received a form enquiry in weeks, test it before assuming it is quiet.

Only a form

Some people will never fill in a form. Some will never phone. The same Nielsen Norman Group research found that people still expect to see a phone number, an email address and an address, and that a form or chat should sit alongside those details, never replace them. Offer at least two routes, and make the phone number visible rather than hidden behind a button.

No sign of a real business

A page with a form and nothing else, no name, no area, no number, reads like a template. Customers are more cautious now, and a page that hides who you are makes them pause.

How do you test your contact page?

Do this on your own phone, then ask a friend to do it on theirs. It takes five minutes.

1. Tap the phone number. Does it open the dialler with the right number?
2. Tap the email address. Does it open a new email to the right address?
3. Fill in the form with a real message and send it. Does it arrive, and how long does it take?
4. Check the thank you message. Does it tell the person what happens next?
5. Tap the WhatsApp or messaging button, if you have one. Does it open a chat with your business number?
6. Read your business name and address. Are they the same as on your invoices, your Google listing and your social profiles?

That last point matters for search as well as trust. Keeping your name, address and phone number identical everywhere helps search engines connect your website with the rest of your presence online. Our guide on why a website is not showing on Google covers the other basics.

For a wider check of the whole site, use our website audit checklist. Contact links are one of the first things on it.

Contact page or contact form on every page?

Both, for most service businesses. A dedicated contact page gives you a place for the full details, the legal information and the map. A short form or a contact button at the bottom of each service page catches people at the moment they decide, without making them navigate away. On the small business websites we build, every page ends with a clear way to get in touch, and the phone number sits in the header on mobile.

How we put this together

The mistakes above come from audits of live sites we carried out in 2026, anonymised. The page checklist is the one we use on every site we build. Usability findings are from Nielsen Norman Group and Baymard Institute. The legal summary links to the regulations themselves and to GOV.UK, so you can check the exact wording for your own business. If you are unsure what applies to you, an accountant or solicitor can confirm it.

The short version

Give people at least two ways to reach you, make every link do what it says, keep the form short, show who you are and where you work, and test it all on a phone. If your contact page has not produced an enquiry in a while, ask us to take a look and we will tell you plainly what is stopping it.

Sources

• Nielsen Norman Group, Contact Us Pages: what people expect to find and how long a contact form should be.
• Baymard Institute, checkout form field research: the average number of checkout form fields in 2024.
• The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002, regulation 6: general information a business must provide online.
• The Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015: what a company must disclose, including on its website.
• GOV.UK, Running a limited company: signs, stationery and promotional material: plain English summary of the disclosure rules.