Is there anything more inexplicable about a business website than being unable to find contact information?
You're interested, ready to buy, or simply want more information, but ...you can't find the email address, street address, or phone number!
Which is because it's been stuck on a page all by itself somewhere else on the site. Not a shred of contact information anywhere except that one page.
This is another classic design mistake that heralds back to the days when graphic designers were told to make websites, and sought to create as many pages as possible from a slim amount of information.
It seems like an extension of the website-as-brochure mindset from the early days. Maybe graphic designers were so used to putting contact information only on the back of a flyer they figured it would only have one place on a website as well.
But it's more helpful to think of web pages in terms of a letterhead, where there should be essential information at your fingertips at all times. A visitor should be able to call a business or send an email from whatever page they happen to be on, instead of having to wander off to a separate part of the site. That breaks how visitors naturally move around a website, and demands they take at least one extra step just to get in touch... and probably moves them away from what got them interested in the first place!
In fairness, a contact page isn’t pointless in every case, just misused on a grand scale. If you have 35 offices, then yes, a contact page is appropriate, but at least a head office or 1-800 number should still appear on every page.
Just like the "enter" or "splash" page, never make your visitors jump through a hoop to do something as basic as contacting you.
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