There are just so many things to love about WordPress. It’s easy to use, free, flexible and is backed by a large community that’s always willing to help beginners out.
As a longtime WordPress user, I enjoyed hunting for plugins that supercharged my projects. These excellent pieces of software allowed me to build professional-looking, fully-functioning, and user-friendly websites without having to learn extensive coding.
When it comes to usability, one of the most important tools you need in your WordPress arsenal is a form builder. It allows your audience to interact with your brand – be it in the shape of general inquiries, support requests, or feedback. Forms can also be used for surveys that help you gain a deeper understanding of your audience.
Although the official WordPress repository already offers plenty of form-building plugins, some bloggers and marketers prefer sticking to the G Suite – a cloud-based platform for webmasters designed by none other than Google.
In this post, I’ll show you the different methods of using Google Forms with your WordPress sites.
Creating with Google Forms
First of all, log in to Google Forms using any valid Google account.
Of course, using a template is a huge time-saver, especially if you already know what you’re trying to accomplish with your form. But for the sake of demonstrating the features of Google Forms, let’s go ahead and start from a blank template.
You can also use the sidebar to add other form elements, such as an image, video, or a separate section.
As a rule of thumb, only ask for the information you need from your target users. If you ask too many questions or become too invasive, users might be discouraged to complete their submission.
To learn more about the functions of Google Form, refer to the G Suite Learning Center by clicking this link.
Sending Your Google Form to WordPress
Now that you know how to use Google Forms, it’s time to learn how to embed them on your WordPress site. The simplest approach is to paste the embed code straight into any post or page.
The appearance of your form depends on three things: your current WordPress theme, the dimensions you’ve set when generating the embed code, and your color palette preferences in Google Forms.
Take note that your WordPress theme dictates the width of your post’s content area. You can adjust this via code or by installing another theme. In some themes, the content area also adjusts to full width if you disable sidebar widgets.
Using wpGForm
Adding Google Forms through embed codes seems simple enough that there’s no reason to use plugins, right?
If your only goal is to embed Google Forms to your WordPress site, then the answer is yes. However, wpGForm does a lot more than just integrating forms. It also allows you to hide the form’s title, modify the submit button, use captcha, and so on.
But before anything else, remember that wpGForm only works with the older version of Google forms.
It’s worth noting that wpGForm is a plugin with quite a learning curve. Using the default settings, your form will utilize basic rendering elements as opposed to using the embed code.
But in the right hands, Google Forms and wpGForm is a powerful combination that can take your data collection efforts to the next level. You can define CSS rules, setup input validation, enable hidden fields, and override the default text in Google Form buttons.
To learn more about the things you can do with wpGForm, you can refer to the tips and tricks section found on the creator’s official website.
