Should you put a contact form on your blog?

Contact form on right sidebar of IndianTopBlogs.com

Contact form is a very useful widget on a blog, as it gives a ready place where the visitor can put his remarks without using email etc. and instantly. Messages posted by the visitor are received on the associated email account.

On Blogger, we have a contact form gadget (Go to Layout> Add a Gadget> More Gadgets> Contact Form) that can be put anywhere in the blog. On Wordpress, there is a built-in plugin with this name. If this is disabled, you can go to Plugin menu and add it.

Contact form on Wordpress: customization guide

Interestingly, in the case of Contact Form, Wordpress free blogging platform has more options than Blogger. On WP, you can put the contact form in a specific page or post and customize it in different ways. If you want to customize it on Blogger, you will either have to write the code or copy a code from the web (available free as well as on payment).

We find that the simple contact form works well on both these platforms. It also does not have issues that sometimes crop up when you use free/ paid gadgets or plugins. For example, some bloggers have reported that their contact form appears well on the blog but visitors' messages are not received on email.

We'd be grateful if you please give your views on having a contact form with or without the regular comment box. It will help us guide bloggers with more shades of opinions and experiences on the subject. Use the contact form for that. ;)