For the vast majority of us, our website is a marketing tool and we want to generate leads from it for our business.
The main way most people do this is via some sort of contact form, but how do you make multi language contact forms?
I’ll teach you how I do it for my clients.
Gravity Forms
I use WordPress for all my client sites, so if you are into one of the other content management systems then this post is probably not for you. As an aside, give WordPress a go for your multi language sites, the support for multiple languages is great.
The process starts with a top quality contact form plugin. I use gravity forms. It’s a premium plugin and prices start at $39, but this plugin is so useful I use it on all my sites and my clients’ sites too and the investment is well worth while.
Not only will it solve your multi language issues, but it will link to your email provider, create quotes in things like Freshbooks, add the users to your CRM, the list goes on and on it’s the best contact form out there full stop.
Multi Language Contact Forms Add-On
I use a plugin called WPML for all of my multi language sites. It’s a great tool and speeds up the development process greatly.
The good people at WPML have also developed a multi language add on for gravity forms which makes it very easy to translate your forms. The addon is free and available here Gravity Forms multilingual.
Making Your Form Fields Available To Translate
The main thing the plugin does is to make your form fields available to translate.
As an example I have description on my hire us form that says “Can you give us a brief description of your project and how we can help”.
In WPML there is a string translation section, I simply go into that and search for the string above and I can add my French, German and Spanish translations.
Sending Your Forms Out To Translation
Another benefit of WPML is that you can send the content of your website out to freelance translators. They receive text files and translate then, sending them back to your site in a seamless process.
You can also do this with your forms so you can build multi language forms even if you have no language skills for your target translation.
Route Responses Based Upon Language
So you form is up and running in multiple language and the stream of leads is coming in as expected now what?
You can route your leads to different addresses based upon the language selected when the form was completed.
This is great if you have multiple team members dealing with leads from different countries. Here’s a screen shot of the routing screen where I send forms to different addresses.
The Only Thing Missing
The only thing missing from this process is the ability to send form entries out for translation as we can for the forms themselves.
My quick and dirty solution is to run any forms sent to me that are not English through translate.google.com. The results are weird but I always get the gist of what is required.
If anyone from WPML reads this please leave a comment to let me know if translating entries is on the development plan .
Wrap Up
For most websites, collecting leads is the main function, make sure this crucial part of your process is translated and easy for your site visitors to contact your business.
What not jump over to my hire us page and see the contact form in action at the bottom of the page.
Photo Credit: Robots are Stupid via Compfight cc