The Button That Says Submit

The last word before the decision

A visitor has typed a name, an email address, a phone number and a description of the job. At the bottom of the form sits a grey button that says Submit.

It is the last thing they read before committing, and it says nothing about what they are committing to.

Submit, Send, Go, Click here: each describes what the button does to the form. None says what the visitor gets.

That gap is small, and it sits at the most sensitive point on the whole page.

Why Submit is everywhere

Nobody chooses it. Most form plugins start with Submit or Send, and browsers fall back on Submit when a button has no words of its own.

The developer builds the form with the default, the business checks that a test message arrives, and nobody looks at the button again.

The word itself does no favours. Submitting is what people do with tax returns and job applications: handing something over to be judged, with no idea when they will hear back.

What the visitor is unsure about

Hesitation at the button is rarely about the button. It is about what happens after it.

• Whether somebody will phone when they only wanted an email.
• Whether this is a booking or only a request.
• Whether they are committing to anything, or paying for it.
• When they will hear back, today or next week.
• Whether it worked, or needs sending again.

The first stops more people than businesses expect. Somebody gathering prices late in the evening wants an answer by email, and a form that might set off a sales call is easier to abandon.

Name what they get

Button text works best when it names the outcome: Get my quote, Book my appointment, Check availability, Send my question, Reserve a table.

A verb and the thing the visitor wants, in two to four words. Many sites write it in the first person, so the button reads as the visitor's own sentence. Either form works if it names the outcome.

The words should match the page. A page headed Request a free estimate should end with a button that says Get my free estimate, not Send.

Avoid words that raise the stakes. Buy, Commit and Sign up sound larger than Get a price or Ask a question, and a button should never sound bigger than the step really is.

The line beside the button

One sentence, next to or just under the button, does what the button cannot: it says what happens next.

We reply by email within one working day. Nobody will call unless you ask. Your booking is not confirmed until we reply. Each answers one of the doubts that stop people pressing.

It must be true. A promise of a reply within the hour that turns into two days is worse than no promise at all.

And it should be short. One line, in plain words, read in the second before the tap; a paragraph of terms in small grey print does the opposite job.

A worked example

A home cleaning company with three crews takes most of its enquiries through a quote form: type of clean, size of home, preferred date, postal code and a phone number, ending in a button that said Submit.

The office regularly took calls from people asking whether their form had gone through, and some requests arrived twice, a minute apart.

The button became Get my cleaning quote. Beneath it went one line: we email a written estimate within one business day, and only call if you ask us to.

The phone field became optional, with a note saying why it helps. After a tap, the button now changes to say Sending and cannot be pressed again.

The thank-you page repeats the promise, and gives the office number for anybody who needs a move-out clean within the next two days.

None of it changed the prices or the service. It changed what the visitor knew at the moment of pressing.

The page after the button

Whatever the button promised, the page that follows should confirm it in the same words: your quote request is in, and we will email an estimate by tomorrow afternoon.

The automatic email should say the same, with a copy of what was sent, so the visitor has a record and a way to correct a mistake.

A generic thank-you message leaves people wondering whether the form worked, which is exactly the doubt the line beside the button was meant to remove.

Buttons elsewhere on the site

The same principle applies beyond the contact form.

A newsletter box that says Subscribe can say what arrives instead: Send me the monthly offers. A download button can name the file and its size.

In a checkout, Continue to payment says more than Continue, and Place order is clearer with the total beside it, so nobody presses it unsure of what they will be charged.

Learn more and Read more say the least of all. Name the page they lead to.

Small details that matter

The button should look like a button: filled, with strong contrast, large enough for a thumb, and clearly separate from the fields above it.

Remove any Reset or Clear button. It sits beside the real one, does the opposite, and anybody who presses it by mistake loses everything they typed.

And after a tap, the button should show that something is happening. A button that appears to do nothing gets pressed again, which is where duplicate requests come from.

The counter-case

A better button will not rescue a bad form.

If the form asks for too much, or the offer behind it is unclear, the wording at the bottom is the least of the problems. Fix those first.

Nor is the button the place to fix slow replies. A line promising an answer within one working day only helps if somebody is there to keep it.

Some buttons need no rewriting. Search, Log in and Add to cart are understood everywhere, and inventing new words for them only slows people down.

For every button that commits a visitor to something: name what they get, and say what happens next.

Rewriting the buttons

1. List every button on the site.
2. Flag any that say Submit, Send or Click here.
3. Rewrite each as what the visitor gets.
4. Add one line saying what happens next.
5. Make the thank-you page repeat the promise.
6. Remove any Reset button from forms.
7. Send a test through every form.

Step four does the most work. The button names the outcome; the line beside it removes the doubt that stops people pressing it.

The same reluctance to say what happens next is covered in a pricing page that says contact us.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.