SPAM appears in many forms as it dilutes real information and creates suspicious cynics of us all. Where email SPAM can send a million copies of the same pre-constructed message to a huge list of addresses, form SPAM can only connect and complete each form one at a time. This limitation gives us an edge for protecting your forms.

The overlying method for preventing form SPAM is to verify that the form visitor is a real person and not a computer program; often referred to as a ‘bot’ (short for ‘robot’). Techniques for confirming the visitor as human are to use simple interactive elements that expose the behavioral differences between humans and bots.

The first line of defense

Formsite has built-in security measures to monitor and prevent many problems with online forms, including fraudulent submissions by bots. Our system uses several layered techniques to alert us when problems may be present and helps us to automatically protect against non-legitimate form visitors.

Order forms are a special kind of form where a quantity of a product or service is requested. Often a payment is made but it’s not required, and special items are needed to choose a quantity and set a price or score. Online order form examples include:

• Products with additional choices like size and color
• Event registrations with a fee
• Subscriptions for a recurring service
• Expense reports

The recent upgrade to optimize the interface for our customers was a major change for everyone. The transition went smoothly and one of the elements that may be credited with easing some of the change was a page highlighting the changes and asking for feedback. This makeover update is a high-level view of the current feedback from our customers.

One of our most useful features is Save & Return, which gives your form visitors the ability to save their progress on your form. Using this feature is mostly straightforward but there are some settings and features that form owners should be aware of.

For example:

• Do I need to add the Save & Return item to my form?
• What do the settings do?
• How do I link to my form?
• How do Notifications work with it?
• Can I Pre-populate?
• Does it work with embedded forms?

This makeover changes the user interface of the Formsite pages once you log in to the site. The primary goal of the redesign is to modernize the look and behavior of the tool, and take advantage of modern devices, screen sizes, and current technology.

Form building can be tricky the first few times until you get used to the different items and their ideal uses. Text input fields are typically easy to understand, but multi-select items used to select pre-filled choices are more complex. These items include:

• Radio Buttons
• Dropdowns
• Checkboxes

When should you use each one? Are there guidelines to follow?

 

Are your form results hard to read because of unclear column headers? Do you know you can make custom labels? For example, a common item for many forms is an agreement item that the visitor must check before proceeding. These include registration forms with a Terms & Conditions agreement or order forms with an acknowledgement of the return policy.

The display of these items in results and reports can be problematic. If you add a descriptive question then it looks repetitive, but if you choose to use a blank question then your item is recorded with a simple number. We solve that problem by offering Custom Labels settings that let you create more useful forms and reports.

A popular question is how to add images or logos to a form. Formsite allows users at all service levels to add images and there are a few ways to do it. The basic order of steps to add an image to your form:

1. Make your image web-accessible
2. Locate your image URL
3. Add the image item to your form

If your form is made to collect leads, orders, or other results, you are always looking to improve the conversion rate. As difficult as it is to get visitors to your form, it makes sense that you want to optimize your form to get as many visitors to actually complete the form. Increasing conversions is done by making changes to your form then comparing the results to see what works better. Over time, your form will evolve into a high-performing results generator. What can you change about your form to help it work better? Simple things like layout and some text changes can make all the difference.

WordPress is more popular than ever due to its combination of simplicity and powerful customization features. Users of all kinds—from newbies to power users, bloggers to big-time organizations—can take advantage of WordPress' smart tools to quickly make a brand new professional website. One of the most popular WordPress features is the ability to add a plug-in to perform a non-built-in function, such as collecting form data or sending an email. Unfortunately, plug-ins come with risks like difficulty installing or configuring, not working with other plug-ins or WordPress updates, or having to constantly monitor and update. Luckily, Formsite forms are easy to embed into your WordPress site and have none of the drawbacks that plug-ins have.