Issue #12

6/2/2024

Say What?

User Responses on Your Website

Hello, librarians!

Do you know how (or if) users of your website can communicate with you directly through the site?

Responsibility for a website includes responding to the contacts you do get, in a timely manner – people who take the time to reach out to you deserve a response!

Sharon Barnes, SCKLS Technology Consultant

Comment Conundrum

You certainly want to hear and acknowledge both positive and negative comments – but your website may not be the best place to do it.

These days, many librarians turn off commenting on website posts and pages in favor of using social media for interactive communication.

Contact Sharon sharon@sckls.info for easy instructions on turning off commenting on website posts if you would like to do so.

The Flip Side

But think about the input you do want to receive on your website. These might include:

Contacts – messages submitted through a Contact Us form
Forms - for service requests such as ILL, purchase suggestions, etc.
Registration forms - for programs or special events
Surveys or polls

Your site already has the capability to add a Contact Us form, which provides users with a text box to submit questions or comments. If your site doesn't have an active one, it's ridiculously easy to set up!

Just create a new page named 'Contact Us', drop in the Jetpack ‘Contact Form’ block, and Publish.

This embeds a simple form which is ready to go. Unless you change it (which you can), these responses will generate an email message to the site’s admin email address. You can also log in and see all the form responses listed as ‘Feedback’ entries.

Don’t forget to add your new page to the site’s navigation menu, so people will see it!

Monitoring Submissions

When you log in to your website, you will see dashboard alerts if post comments have arrived.

To see form submissions, hover over ‘Feedback’ > Form Responses, or look in your form plugin, if you have one.

Click through to see them all, and respond to any that haven't already been handled via email.

Forms

If you want to create more involved forms for specific purposes, there are several good plugins available – contact Sharon to discuss which might fit your needs.

If you already use custom forms and are getting spam, definitely consider adding a simple Captcha field to each form.

Spam

It's an annoying fact of online life. If you allow any kind of input, someone (or some thing), somewhere is going to try spamming it.

Akismet anti-spam (your pro version is paid for by SCKLS) is great protection, so you probably never see most of the bad stuff. But human oversight is still required!

You need to periodically check for and clear out any spam, but make it easy on yourself. You can get rid of them all in one fell swoop – in this example, click the ‘Spam’ tab. and then the ‘Empty Spam’ button. Done!

The main thing is to provide at least one way for your users to communicate with you; choose a sustainable method that fits your workflow!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns about your website,

please reach out to me at sharon@sckls.info.

If you have missed any previous issues, you can now read them online.

Sharon Barnes, SCKLS Technology Consultant

sharon@sckls.info

1-800-234-0529 x135