Just about everyone has a website these days, whether it’s a blog to share personal stories and travel photos or a hub for a small business. WordPress has become one of the most popular platforms for building your own website because of its intuitive usability for beginners and the options it offers to those who are more advanced at web design. Now, WordPress has a tool to simplify your website-building projects while adding popular features to your site, the WPForms plugin. WPForms allows you to set up any kind of form for visitors to your site, from a basic “Contact Me” page to accepting payments, creating polls, and building mailing lists.
What’s Great About WPForms?
The WPForms plugin follows the WordPress model of being user friendly with its drag-and-drop form builder tool and it is backed by WordPress customer service. No coding skills whatsoever are needed and once your form is built, the html code is provided for you to copy and paste into the appropriate place on your website. The plugin is mobile responsive so your pages will look great on any device. The free version features a blank form and a “Contact Me” form in several templates, one of which is sure to match the style of your website. A “Contact Me” page is a necessity because it prevents you from having to display your email address, protecting you from spamming and phishing. Premium versions integrate the popular payment services PayPal and Stripe into your website and provide addons for MailChimp, Constant Contact, and other mailing list building services. Dozens of other addons are available, including accepting guest post submissions and creating polls, as well. And WPForms offers spam protection through CAPTCHA to help keep your inbox free from unwanted spam.
What’s Not So Great About WPForms?
WPForms only works on self-hosted WordPress websites; it can’t be used on a WordPress-hosted site. Website builders with more advanced needs find some of the premium options a little underwhelming, especially when there are free plugins that accomplish some of the same tasks, such as a newsletter signup form. As far as functionality goes, WPForms opens as a new interface over the WordPress dashboard, which some users find distracting. In order to maintain the simple user-friendly functionality of WPForms, the plugin lacks the complex, dynamic options that some developers may be looking for.
WPForms offers versatility website builders of all skill levels. It is a great option for beginners who want a basic contact form for free. It’s also a good choice for advanced users who need to integrate multiple features into their website and want to manage them all from one dashboard. There are several premium versions of the WPForms plugin, ranging from $49 to $199 per year, offering affordable options whether your website is a personal hobby, a portal for a nonprofit organization, or an integral part of your business.