Your website gets visitors but no enquiries. Here's where they're leaving

Your analytics say people are visiting. Maybe a few a day, maybe dozens.

But the phone's quiet. The contact form sends nothing. And you're starting to wonder whether websites work at all.

They do. But there's a gap between "someone visited" and "someone got in touch", and it's usually caused by a handful of small things rather than one big one.

The trick is to stop looking at the website as a whole and start looking at it the way a visitor does: in the order they see it, on the device they're using, in the few seconds before they decide to stay or go.

Quick answer: Open your website on your phone and pretend you're a customer with a problem. Within five seconds, can you tell what you do, where you work, and how to contact you? If any of those three is missing or hidden, fix that first. Then look at trust signals, then the contact form itself.

Three questions to keep in mind. We'll get to each one:

• Are these visitors actually potential customers?
• Why does the site look fine to me but not work for them?
• What's the single most common reason people leave without calling?

First, are the visitors the right people?

Before you change anything on the site, check who's arriving.

A website can get hundreds of visits from people who were never going to hire you: bots, people outside your area, job seekers, other businesses, and you checking your own site.

If you have Google Search Console set up, look at the Performance report. It shows the searches people used to find you. If the top searches are your own business name, most visitors already knew you. If they're things like "plumber near me" or "boiler repair Penarth", you're reaching new people.

If you haven't set it up yet, my guide on why a business might not show up on Google walks through it.

This matters because the fix is different:

• Lots of visits from the wrong people is a visibility problem. Changing the contact form won't help.
• Visits from the right people, but no enquiries is a website problem. That's what the rest of this guide is about.

Follow a visitor's first 30 seconds

Most visitors decide very quickly whether to stay. So walk through those first seconds yourself, slowly, on a phone.

Use your phone, not your computer. Many local searches happen on mobile, and a site that looks tidy on a big screen can be a mess on a small one.

Open your site and ask these questions, in order.

Second 1 to 5: do I know what this is?

Look only at what's on screen before you scroll.

• Does it say what you do in plain words? "Electrician in Barry" beats "Powering your future".
• Does it say where you work?
• Is there a picture that shows the work, rather than a stock photo of a handshake?

If a stranger can't answer "what does this business do, and is it near me?" in five seconds, many will hit the back button and pick the next result.

Second 5 to 15: can I see how to get in touch?

Still without scrolling much:

• Is there a phone number? Can you tap it to call?
• Is there a button that says what happens next, such as "Get a quote" or "Book a callout"?
• Does the button actually work on your phone?

Tap everything. You'd be surprised how often a phone number isn't a link, or a button goes to a page that no longer exists.

Second 15 to 30: do I trust them?

Now scroll. A visitor is asking, "Will these people turn up, do a good job and not rip me off?"

What answers that?

• Real photos of your work, your van or your team.
• Reviews from real customers, ideally linked to your Google reviews.
• Accreditations you genuinely hold, such as trade body membership or Gas Safe registration, with your registration number where relevant.
• A name and a face. People hire people.
• Clear pricing, or at least a clear explanation of how you price.

If your site has none of those, you're asking a stranger to trust you based on a logo.

Why it looks fine to you but not to them

Here's the answer to the second question.

You know your business. When you look at your website, your brain fills in the gaps. You know you cover Cardiff, so you don't notice the site never says so. You know your number, so you don't notice it's hidden at the bottom of the contact page.

Your visitor has none of that background. They only have the screen.

That's why a quick test with someone who doesn't know your business is so useful. Ask a friend, neighbour or family member to find your phone number on your site, on their phone, while you watch. Don't help. Note where they hesitate.

The most common reason people leave without calling

If I had to pick one, it's this: the next step isn't obvious on a phone.

The number's in the footer. The contact form has twelve fields. The "Contact us" button is the same colour as everything else. Or the site asks visitors to read three paragraphs about your history before it tells them what you do.

The fix is usually simple:

1. Put a tappable phone number and one clear button near the top of every page.
2. Use the same wording for that button everywhere, so people learn what it does.
3. Repeat the call to action after each main section, so nobody has to scroll back up.

Look hard at your contact form

If people do try to get in touch, the form is the last hurdle. A lot of enquiries die here.

Check:

• How many fields are there? Ask only for what you need to reply. Name, phone or email, and a short message is often enough to start.
• Are fields marked as required that don't need to be? Making "company name" compulsory for a homeowner is a small irritation that adds up.
• Does it work? Send yourself a test enquiry every month. Forms break silently, and you'll only find out when you notice the enquiries stopped.
• What happens after someone presses send? They should see a clear message saying it's arrived and when you'll reply.
• Where do the emails go? Check your spam folder. Form emails often land there.

Do this today: send a test message through your own contact form, from your phone, using a different email address. If it doesn't arrive within a few minutes, that alone could explain the quiet phone.

Speed: the problem you can't see on your own Wi-Fi

A page that loads instantly on your office broadband might crawl on a customer's phone signal in a car park.

You can test this for free with Google's PageSpeed Insights. Put in your address and look at the mobile result. It'll highlight the biggest problems, which are often oversized images.

You don't need a perfect score. You need a page that shows useful content quickly enough that a visitor doesn't give up.

Fix things in this order

You don't need a new website to fix most of this. Work through it in order, because each step makes the next one count:

1. Check the visitors are the right people (Search Console).
2. Make the top of the home page say what you do and where.
3. Add a tappable phone number and one clear button near the top of every page.
4. Add real photos, real reviews and genuine accreditations.
5. Shorten the contact form and test that it works.
6. Check mobile speed and shrink any huge images.

Then give it a few weeks before judging. Enquiries come in bursts, and one quiet week doesn't tell you much.

When fixing isn't enough

Sometimes you work through the list and realise the site can't easily be changed. The builder won't let you move the phone number. The theme breaks on mobile. Nobody remembers the login.

That's when a rebuild starts to make sense, and the question of what a website should cost becomes worth answering properly. But try the list first. Plenty of sites only need a better first five seconds.