Website getting visitors but no enquiries? Twelve things to check

Is it a visibility problem or a conversion problem?

They look the same from the inside, no enquiries, and have opposite fixes. A visibility problem means too few of the right people arrive; a conversion problem means they arrive and leave. To tell them apart:

1. Open Search Console. Which searches are bringing the visits? If they are not the searches a customer would make, your own name, a blog post about something unrelated, a product you no longer sell, the visitors were never going to enquire. That is visibility.
2. Look at your analytics for the pages visitors land on and how long they stay. If customers are landing on the right service pages and leaving within seconds, that is conversion.
3. Count the enquiries you do get and where they came from. If the phone rings but the form is never used, the form is the problem, not the site.

If it is visibility, start with our guide to why a website does not appear on Google. If it is conversion, carry on.

Twelve things to check, in order

1. Does the page say what you do, for whom, where, in the first screen?Open your main page on a phone. If the first screen is a slogan and a photograph, the visitor does not yet know they are in the right place.
2. Can they call you with one tap?The phone number must be a link on a phone. An image of a number, or a number in the footer only, loses the urgent visitor.
3. Is there a price, a starting price or a range?People comparing three businesses skip the one that makes them ask. “Call for a quote” with nothing else is a leak.
4. How many fields does the form have?Name, a way to reply and what they need. Every extra field loses people, especially on a phone.
5. Does the form actually work?Send yourself a test enquiry now. Forms break silently when sites are updated, and nobody notices for months.
6. How fast does the page load on a phone?Test it on mobile data, not office wifi. A slow page is left before it is read.
7. Are the visitors the right visitors?Back to Search Console. A page ranking for “how to fix a boiler yourself” brings people who want to fix it themselves.
8. Is there any proof?Reviews, photographs of real work, registrations, a case study. A page with no evidence asks the visitor to take your word for it.
9. Does the page match the search?Someone who searched for “emergency electrician” and landed on a general services page has to find the right section. Most do not.
10. Is there one clear next step?Call, book or ask for a quote. A page with six buttons of equal weight has none.
11. What happens after they enquire?If the reply takes two days, the enquiry has gone elsewhere. Reply the same day and say on the page that you will.
12. Is the offer itself the problem?Sometimes the page is fine and the price, the lead time or the area is not competitive. The website cannot fix that, but it can tell you by what people ask.

The two-minute test

Hand your phone to someone who does not know your business. Ask them to find out, from your website, what you do, roughly what it costs and how to get in touch, and time them. If it takes more than two minutes, or they give up, you have found the problem. It is nearly always one of the first six items above.

What to fix first

Fix the leak closest to the enquiry first. A broken form or a number that does not dial loses every visitor who was ready to act; a slow page loses some; a weak headline loses the undecided. In practice:

• First: the form works, the number dials, the reply is same-day.
• Second: the first screen says what, for whom and where, with one clear next step.
• Third: price, proof and the questions people ask before they call.
• Then: speed, the match between search and page, and the offer itself.

Change one thing at a time and watch the enquiry count for a few weeks. This is the method behind our conversion optimisation work; done carefully it usually produces more enquiries from the same visitors before any new traffic is needed.