If your website isn’t generating leads, it’s almost always one of four things: it’s slow on a phone, it’s awkward to use on a phone, Google can’t tell what you do, or something on it puts people off before they get in touch.
None of them are obvious when you look at your own site on your own computer. All four are fixable, most of them quickly. Here’s how to spot each one.
1. It’s slow on a phone
Most people looking for a local business are on their phone, often on patchy signal. If your site takes too long to appear, they don’t wait. They go back and tap the next result.
Google’s own research found that 53% of people leave a mobile site if it takes more than three seconds to load. So on a slow site, around half the people who find you are gone before they’ve seen what you do.
The upside is just as clear. A Deloitte study for Google found that making a mobile site just a tenth of a second faster got retailers 8.4% more sales from the same visitors.
Check it yourself: open your site on your phone with Wi-Fi switched off. Count the seconds until you can see what you do. More than three, and this is costing you.
2. It’s awkward to use on a phone
A site can load quickly and still lose people. The usual culprits:
- Text so small people have to pinch to read it
- Buttons and links so close together that people tap the wrong one
- A phone number people can’t tap to ring
- A menu that doesn’t open, or covers the page when it does
- A contact form that’s fiddly to fill in on a small screen
Every one of these adds a small moment of “this is annoying”, and each moment loses a few more people. Someone looking for a plumber at eight in the morning won’t fight your website. They’ll ring whoever makes it easy.
Check it yourself: on your phone, try to call yourself from your own homepage. If it takes more than one tap, fix that first.
3. Google can’t tell what you do
If people can’t find your site, it can’t generate leads. And Google can only show you for searches it understands you’re a good answer to.
Most often, the page title (the blue link in Google) says something like “Home” or just your business name. The page never says plainly what you do and where. Or there’s no description, so Google makes one up from whatever text it finds.
A page titled “Home” won’t show up for “electrician in Dolgellau”. A page titled “Electrician in Dolgellau · Your Business”, which says the same in its first line, has a chance. I’ve written more on this in why your website isn’t showing up on Google and how to get your website on page 1 of Google.
Check it yourself: search for your main service and your town on your phone. If you’re not on the first screen, this is probably why.
4. Something puts people off before they get in touch
Some visitors get all the way to your site, like what you do, and still leave. Usually something made them hesitate:
- A “not secure” warning next to your address, which browsers show when the security certificate is missing or has expired
- Nowhere obvious to get in touch, or a contact page buried in the menu
- Out-of-date details, like last year’s prices, old opening hours, or a copyright date from 2019
- No sign of real people: no photos of your work, no reviews, nothing that says “we’re still trading”
Any one of these makes people wonder if you’re still open, or if they can trust you. They won’t email to ask. They’ll just go.
Check it yourself: look at the address bar on your phone. If it says “Not secure”, fix that today. See why your website says “not secure”.
What fixing them is worth
Say your site gets 200 visitors a month and one in fifty gets in touch. That’s four enquiries. If fixing these problems means one in twenty-five gets in touch instead, that’s eight enquiries a month from the same visitors, without spending a penny more on advertising.
These numbers are only an example, but the principle holds: you don’t need more visitors, you need fewer of them leaving.
Get all four checked for free
I run a free check that tests your site for all four: how fast it loads on a phone, how easy it is to use on one, whether Google can read it properly, and whether anything is putting visitors off. You get a short report in plain English, with what to fix first.
Run the free website check. It takes about 20 seconds.
I go through every full report by hand, so I can only do a limited number each week. If your site is losing you leads, the sooner you know which of the four it is, the sooner it stops.
