Ultimate Guide To Using Gravity Forms in WordPress | WP Full Care (2024)

December 7. 2022

Forms are more than just a way to gather information; they may also serve as a means of communication, billing, and even getting valuable feedback from customers. Your company’s connection with its clients is facilitated via forms. Many WordPress sites would be incomplete without a reliable form builder, which can be used for everything from a simple contact form to newsletter signup to an in-depth user experience survey. Although WordPress has a large number of free plugins, many of them are very basic and have few features. Meanwhile, professional form plugins provide you with a lot more leeway in terms of design flexibility and data management once you start receiving submissions. But what is the best form builder out there? So we’ve asked WordPress experts and they’ve given us a thorough guide to using Gravity Forms in WordPress. Now let’s get to work!

What is Gravity Forms and why should you start using it on your WordPress website?

Gravity forms is one ofthe most popular WordPress forms plugins and in our opinion, the very best one out there. With the help of this premium WordPress plugin, you can create advanced, user-friendly forms with the click of a mouse. This plugin makes it simple to incorporate polls, quizzes, and surveys into your website. Other popular features include conditional formatting, which determines whether or not to display a question based on the response to a previous question, and routing, which sends submissions to email addresses that you choose.

After more than ten successful years on the market, Gravity Forms has solidified its position as the de facto standard for WordPress form plugins. But if these reasons aren’t enough, let’s find out why you should start using Gravity Forms in WordPress.

Why should you start using Gravity Forms on your WordPress website?

If you are running a successful WordPress website for a while, you’ve probably noticed there are plenty of form builders out there. Some of them are even free of charge! So what then sets Gravity Forms apart from the competition? Here are just some of the reasons:

#1 Accessibility

Web accessibility refers to the practice of making websites accessible to persons with different types of impairments, including those who may have trouble seeing or using the screen. When it comes to making web forms available to everyone, Gravity Forms is at the forefront. You may now create WCAG-compliant forms with the help of various accessibility enhancements.

Here are just some of the accessibility features that were included with the Gravity Forms 2.5 update:

• Explicit HTML5 markup that’s both powerful and flexible.
• Improved screen reader feedback designed specifically for the visually impaired.
• Option for providing feedback on different form errors.
• Enhanced keyboard performance and navigation.

Having in mind that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 26%, or around 60 million, adults in the United States live with a handicap, your website accessibility is that much more important. Improving the online experience for all users, as well as growing your user base, is possible by making your web forms accessible. At the end of the day, it’s always good to remember how website accessibility affects persons with disabilities.

#2 Effortless operation

The user-friendliness of Gravity Forms has been improved greatly. The graphic, drag-and-drop form editor it includes makes creating even the most complex forms a breeze. In version 2.5, the previously cumbersome form editor has been updated to be more intuitive. Plenty of room is provided for managing complex rules thanks to the well-organized layout of the field settings and the fly-out panel for conditional logic configuration.

If you need to locate a specific field in the form editor but don’t want to scroll through all of the available options, you can use the search bar provided. You may also organize your data visually by dragging and dropping fields into columns. As a result, putting together a form is [pretty quick and painless. Even setting up a new form is very easy. Visit the template library and pick from the many available Gravity Forms layouts. It’s as simple as that.

#3 Flexibility and ability to grow

Gravity Forms’ ability to grow and adapt is one of its greatest strengths. For instance, you can use Gravity Forms to construct order forms for products, registration forms for events, or email opt-ins to expand your mailing list. On top of that, there are plenty of available extensions you can use to integrate Gravity Forms into other popular apps.

These extensions expand the functionality of the core plugin beyond that of a simple form builder. For example, you can do things like show form submissions on the front site, export data to PDF, and make complex computations with form data. This makes Gravity Form a perfect backbone for a variety of different types of websites, including online commerce, employee databases, and membership communities.

#4 Available features

Gravity Forms comes with a ton of cool and useful features. Basic input fields and more complex fields like the File Uploads field, Product field, Date field, and Time field are all available when creating forms. Gravity Forms also has in-built conditional logic, so you can choose which fields to display and which to conceal based on user input. With this, you may design forms for specific purposes and capture the data you need. Last but not least, Gravity Forms enables you to set up notifications that can act as autoresponders, keeping you abreast of every form submission.

#5 Blocking spam

Spam form submissions are one of the most frustrating aspects of running a website. In fact, there’s no website that didn’t face this issue at some point. You add a contact form to your site, and within days, it begins to inundate you with spam. If you’re using Gravity Forms, you can rest easy knowing that users can’t submit spam on your website. There are a number of powerful methods to stop spam from being sent through Gravity Forms, including the use of the advanced honeypot feature and the installation of a free add-on.

A step-by-step guide to using Gravity Forms in WordPress

Now that you know why using Gravity Forms in WordPress is a great idea, here is a step-by-step guide on installing it.

1. Choose and purchase one of the Gravity Forms annual licenses. After doing this, download the Gravity Forms plugin as a .zip file and save it to your device.
2. Now it’s time to upload the Gravity Forms plugin to your WordPress. Click Plugins > Add New in your WordPress admin menu and choose the Gravity Forms file from your computer’s file system. Click the Upload Plugin button and that’s it.
3. After uploading the .zip file to your WordPress, it’s time to click on “Install Now“. Once the installation is completed, click on “Activate Plugin“.
4. Now you’ll need to enter the license key. After purchasing Gravity Forms, you will receive a license key that unlocks the full power of the plugin, including access to support, upgrades, and automatic plugin updates. You may access your license key by going to Your Licenses after logging into your account on the Gravity Forms website. Return to your WordPress dashboard and select Forms > Settings. You can find the Support License Key section under the General Settings tab; copy and paste your key there, then click “Save Settings” on the page’s bottom.
5. You are now ready to start using Gravity Forms in WordPress.

Configuring the Gravity Forms general settings

Now that you installed and activated the Gravity Forms plugin, it’s time to adjust the general settings. Your desired payment currency, error logging, and silent updates are all options here. Having Gravity Forms automatically update in the background is a huge time saver and guarantees that you’re always using the most recent, secure version available. Once you’re happy with the adjustments you’ve made, simply click on the “Save Settings” button at the bottom and you’re good to go.

Creating a form

Now it’s time for the fun part – creating a form for your website. Start by selecting Forms > New Form on the dashboard. It is at this point that you will give your form a name and (if you so choose) a short explanation. The next step is to enter the form editor, where you may use the drag-and-drop builder, fields, and customization options to design your form. As you’ll see, it’s pretty straightforward and very simple to use. Even WordPress beginners love it.

Adding a form to your WordPress website

When you’re happy with your first form, it’s time to publish it on your WordPress website. You can create a new page or edit an existing one. Simply go to Pages in your WordPress dashboard and use the “Add New” or “Select an Existing” button. When editing a page, you’ll notice an Add Form button up near the top. When you click this, a submenu containing all of your available forms will appear. Simply click the Insert Form button and then choose the newly created form. Click on “Update” and now you’ll be able to see your new form live on your WordPress website.

Features that come with Gravity Forms

Creating and managing all kinds of forms in WordPress is a breeze with the help of the Gravity Forms plugin and all the features that come with it. You can improve the quality of contributions you receive from users of your forms by taking advantage of the following features.

Form editor that’s simple to use

Creating forms with Gravity Forms is as simple as dragging and dropping elements into place. There is a lot of flexibility in the form editor, allowing you to simply insert new fields, change the kind of fields, and modify the order of fields. You can collect any kind of information with the plugin’s plethora of form field kinds, which range from a simple text input to captchas to pricing fields.

Efficient email forwarding

As soon as visitors begin filling out your forms, Gravity Forms may automatically distribute the data to the appropriate team members. Take, for example, a pet grooming salon wherein individual stylists have developed expertise in caring for a variety of species. Interested consumers can fill out a form in which they indicate the size of the pet that requires grooming (e.g., dog, cat, rabbit). The submissions of customers who select “rabbit” will be forwarded to the inbox of the employee who has expertise in grooming rabbits as pets. It will make your operations that much more efficient.

Conditional logic feature

Gravity Forms’ most popular feature, conditional logic, allows you to show or hide fields based on the value of another field. For example, if the user answers “Yes” to the question “Do you have a pet?” another field will appear asking them to specify the species of pet they have. Selecting “No” will keep the drop-down menu hidden.

Taking payments

Adding pricing fields to collect payments is another widely used function of Gravity Forms. You can safely and simply accept payments without leaving your form with Gravity Forms’ built-in support for PayPal, Stripe, Square, and more.

Data conversion and export

Another option that Gravity Forms provide is to export data you’ve collected from forms as an Excel spreadsheet. Additionally, Gravity Forms provides conversion data so you can easily compare the number of form submissions to the number of form views to determine where you can make improvements to generate more leads and ultimately more revenues.

Uploading different types of files

Gravity Forms’ advanced features include letting people attach files like photographs and documents to their form submissions. Gravity Forms can also manage user-generated content. Using a simple form builder, you may invite site users to contribute WordPress posts to your website.

Integrations

Finally, Gravity Forms may be used in tandem with other popular platforms for email marketing, CRM, analytics, and messaging. HubSpot, Slack, MailChimp, Stripe, and Constant Contact are just a few examples of popular connectors. Gravity Forms is a premium add-on that helps users combine many programs; you may check its compatibility with the tools you already use by browsing its add-on library.

Wrapping up

As you can see, installing and using Gravity Forms in WordPress is quite simple. Even though this plugin comes with a price tag, it’s definitely worth it. This premium plugin will allow you to not only create unique forms but also help you gather information about your website visitors. All of this will give you a clear image of where your website stands and help you find potential areas that need improving.

Having all of this in mind, we appreciate how much work there is when running a successful website. And we know we just scratched the surface! So why not make your life that much easier by contacting WordPress pros? They can make sure your website is always up to speed and operating smoothly while you focus on growing your audience and thinking of other ways to expand your business.

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