Question

Is there a correct way to go about including submission forms onto your site?

I am needing to create a form that simply allows a user to enter their email, and once they have entered it – show them a site that says thank you and we will be getting in touch with you.

Do I need specific software for this or simply just server space to store the data?

Answer 1

This is a common goal of a CGI script or scripting language. This requires some sort of scripting language on the hosting server, such as PHP, Perl, or ASP.NET.

Create the form in HTML, and then set the action to POST the data to the script.

<form method="POST" action="http://www.mysite/myScript.php">

This script file would contain the language necessary to process the incoming information (name, email, etc.), perform some sort of action (say, emailing the data to a third party), and then displaying a thank you page to the user.