Blogging Genealogy: Make It Easy for Cousins to Contact You

4/16/2013

So. You've created a blog, you've been blogging about your ancestors, you've been responding to comments on your blog, but? You still haven't made any cousin connections.

What else do you need to do to make your family history blog as inviting and as enticing as possible so that cousins will contact you for possible research collaboration?

Well,...

...there really isn't anything better than just blogging and blogging content {posts about your ancestors} so that Google will index your blog so that it ends up in search engine results.

But? Once someone ends up on your blog and realizes that they just might be related to you in some way, how easy do you make it for possible cousins to contact you?

Putting your email address directly on your blog may be helpful for cousins to contact you. However, it also makes it easy for spammers to span your email. Who needs that?

Also? How many times have you had a cousin contact you via email, but not provide some important contact information of their own so that you can easily contact them back? I know that's happened to me in the past. I mean, I like to know the name of the person who has contacted me so that I can address them properly when I contact them back.

And here's the solution: create a Google Contact Me Form in your Google Drive and embed the HTML code for the form on your website. Sounds complicated, I know, but it's not. I promise. It's a 2-step process because you create the Contact Form and then embed it on your family history website or blog. Below I created two slideshows with step-by-step instructions for this 2 step-process -- one for the creation of the Contact Me Form in Google Drive and one on how to embed it on your Blogger Blog. Now, I used Blogger Blog as the example because it's a popular free blogging platform. However, you can embed this Contact Me Form wherever you want using the HTML code.

Creating a Contact Me Form in Google Drive
Before you start the slideshow, the first step is to navigate to your Google Drive account. Then...

Adding the Contact Me Form to Your Blogger Blog
Before starting the slideshow:

Sign in to your Blogger.com account.
If you have multiple blogs, select the blog you want to add the Contact Me Form to.

Then...

If you have any questions, please comment below or, you know, Contact Me.

~Caroline

18 Comments

Pat Kuhn

4/16/2013 08:38:51 am

thank's Caroline, I was just doing a blog post and saw this and now I have a contact page on my blog!!!!!

Caroline

4/16/2013 09:50:39 am

You're welcome, Pat! And thank YOU for stopping by and reading! =)

~C

Tokeloshe link

4/16/2013 12:31:54 pm

Great Tutorial, thank you.

4/17/2013 07:34:10 am

Thanks, Tokeloshe!

Thank you for stopping by! =)

~C

Jo link

4/16/2013 11:12:39 pm

Thanks for a really useful blog post - fab tutorial.

4/17/2013 07:35:08 am

You're welcome. And thank you for your kind words.

I really appreciate you stopping by and reading! =)

~C

Eric Basir link

4/18/2013 03:43:27 am

Very helpful. I've been using Blogger for a few years. Never knew about this form. I just shared your article with my network.

4/19/2013 03:31:52 am

Eric,

I'm glad my post helped you. Every little bit we can do to make collaboration with cousins easier helps! And thank you very much for sharing this post with your network. I really appreciate it! =)

Thanks for stopping by, Eric!

~C

Jana Last link

4/19/2013 02:46:30 am

Caroline,

Thanks for this awesome tutorial! I've now added this contact me form to my blog too.

I want to let you know that your blog post is listed in today's Fab Finds post at http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2013/04/follow-friday-fab-finds-for-april-19.html

Have a great weekend!

4/19/2013 03:33:36 am

Jana,

I'm so glad you found the tutorial helpful, and wow! Thanks for adding me to Fab Finds. I really appreciate it! =)

Thanks for stopping by!

~C

Mariann Regan link

4/19/2013 03:31:18 am

This is a great idea. Excellent point. I have a Wordpress blog, not a Blogger Blog, but the principle is the same. My blog needs a contact form. You are so right! I'm going to ask @wptribe how to put a contact form onto my blog. There already is a contact form on my book website.

4/19/2013 03:40:33 am

Mariann,

I'm glad you found my post helpful. If you are using Wordpress.org -- which is the self-hosting blogging platform as opposed to Wordpress.com which is the Wordpress hosted blogging platform -- then you can add a Wordpress Plugin to your site like this one I've linked to below to add a way for readers/possible cousins to contact you for research collaboration.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/si-contact-form/

Thanks for stopping by and reading, Mariann! I appreciate your support! =)

~C

Diane Hewson link

4/21/2013 03:51:09 pm

great idea, plan to put this on my blogs this evening.
di

Jason Crews link

5/23/2013 06:14:36 am

Thank you for posting Caroline! I am adding this to my blog now!

Beverly Norman link

6/20/2013 08:40:29 am

I'm a little late to the party, but thank you for the great tutorial!

Jenny link

8/1/2013 03:39:14 am

This contact form is a great idea. Thank you so much. Is there a way to be notified whenever someone uses the Contact form or do you check for the responses in Google Drive on a regular basis?

Denise Hibsch Richmond link

7/20/2014 04:12:49 am

Thanks for this terrific tutorial. I successfully posted the form on my blog. I also tested it. The comment goes to my Google Drive. Is there a way for the comment to go to my email? Thanks so much.

Zeb Acuff link

8/9/2014 08:44:08 am

Thanks for the great tutorial. Easy to follow and easy to implement!

Blogging Genealogy: Make It Easy for Cousins to Contact You

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