So, you’ve recently purchased WordPress hosting or installed WordPress on your site. When creating a WordPress site for your business, you need a contact page. Creating or adding a contact form will significantly aid communication between yourself and customers, potentially increasing leads and sales. Because you control inputs on the form, it also restricts unnecessary information.
There are different options when it comes to choosing WordPress contact form plugins. Two of these options include:
The user-friendly nature of the WPForms form builder and the contact form 7’s powerful form builder make creating the desired form easy. The drag-and-drop form builder lets you create both simple forms and create advanced forms.
Some websites opt to list a contact email address rather than using a contact form. This can have negative effects, leaving a contact email address exposed. Resulting in being listed on large spam lists, increasing the risk of potential phishing attacks.
Contact forms also enable better email marketing through better targeting and automation. However, automated email marketing comes with challenges, improper or spammy email marketing can lead to email blocks and even listing on spam lists.
The benefits of using a WordPress contact form plugin over creating your simple contact form are fairly obvious. Adding a free plugin requires minimal effort and time, sometimes just a few clicks. If you use one of the plugins mentioned, you will also benefit from continued updates and if you want premium version features.
However, most contact form plugins are freemium, meaning free to a certain extent. That’s why, if you want to be completely unbound cost, it is best to create your contact form. Create a basic contact form from scratch.
Troubleshoot & Fix missing SMTP from address
Most contact forms will default to send emails without setting or forcing a from address, using the shared server hostname instead. We disallow the use of the server hostname as a from address causing the email to be blocked by our spam filter. To resolve this, you must set or force a from address for emails sent via the SMTP server. The easiest way to do this is with the plugin WP Mail SMTP by WP Forms.
Install & Activate the plugin
1. Firstly, log in to your WordPress admin area.2. After logging in, navigate to the add plugins section.3. Now, using the search feature, enter “WordPress SMTP” into the search box. Click Install Now to install the plugin.Add Plugin 3. Afterwards, activate the plugin. To do this, click Plugins under WP Mail SMTP then, click Activate as shown below.Activate the plugin
Install & Activate the plugin
After activation, the set-up wizard should launch automatically. Sometimes this doesn’t happen, if this is the case, use the manual set up guide.
1. First, to start the wizard, click Let’s Get Started.Setup Wizard2. Now, on the Choose Your SMTP Mailer page, select Other SMTP. Then click Save and Continue.Other SMTP
Remote SMTP connections are blocked. The SMTP address must exist on the server therefore: Gmail, Mailgun and SendGrid are not supported.
3. Afterwards, enter your SMTP hostname. You can use your own domain address, for instance, yourdomain.tld, you need to install an SSL/TLS certificate on the mail service to send securely. cPanel will install this with AutoSSL.SMTP Host 4. To use the secured version, first ensure your mail service for your domain name is secured by an SSL/TLS certificate. Change the port to 587 this is the secure port for SMTP connections and click TLS under Encryption.5. Our shared platform requires authenticated SMTP connections. Click Enable authenticationAdditional SMTP configuration options6. Afterwards, set a from name. What you choose is personal preference. Now, in the from email text box, enter the email address for the contact form and click force from email. Click save and continue to finish set up.From address configuration7. The wizard will prompt you to install additional plugins & features. These are optional, uncheck the highlighted circles and check that the footer text has gone. Then click save and continue.Additional installs 8. We recommend you click Skip this step for both the following steps. But the choice is yours!Skip email step. Skip License key9. Finally, the wizard will attempt to send a test email. If it encounters any difficulties, double-check that the details are correct.
WP Mail SMTP manual set up
The plugin should run the set-up wizard automatically. Setting this up inside the WordPress admin area might be easier for some users as it skips unnecessary steps.
1. First-off, click Settings under WP Mail SMTP in the WordPress admin area.WordPress Admin Page2. Afterwards, enter your from email, enable the force from email checkbox and if you want, click “Set the return-path to match the From Email” to enable return path.From email set up3. To use the secured version, first ensure your mail service for your domain name is secured by an SSL/TLS certificate. Learn how to do this with Plesk4. Now that it’s secure change the port to 587 and, select TLS under encryption.Edit other SMTP 5. Click Save Settings to complete the set-up.
