There is a very simple hack that you can add to an input tag to auto-erase the text in the form field. For example, on my BloggingPro website I have a search box
Rather then adding the text "Search" either above or below the box I added "Search" inside the search box using the following code
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<input onfocus="this.value=''" type="text" value="Search" />
When a user clicks inside the box the word "Search" auto-erases. This is really handy when used with contact forms as many times users fail to remove whatever instructions you have placed in the form field.
If you don't want the text to erase but rather be selected when a user clicks in the form field you can use this code instead.
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<input onfocus="this.select()" type="text" value="Search" />
The advantage to this latter code is that if the user clicks back in the form field after they have typed in text, it doesn't get auto-erased, just selected. For other fields besides a search box this is probably the better approach.
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