“We get quite a few visitors, but nothing comes of it.” It is a complaint we hear often. It is almost never a traffic problem, but a route problem: somewhere between arriving and making an enquiry there is a gap. Sending more visitors to a leaking page only makes the leak more expensive.
This article helps you find that gap. How to set up the whole enquiry process afterwards, from form to follow-up, is covered in more enquiries through your website.
Start with the path of one visitor
Do it yourself first, on your phone and not at the office behind a large screen. Search Google for your main service, land on your page and try to make an enquiry.
- Do you know within a few seconds that you are in the right place?
- Can you see the next step without searching?
- How many fields do you have to fill in, and why?
- Do you get a confirmation after sending, on screen and by email?
Then ask someone who does not know your business to do the same while you watch without helping. Where they hesitate or stop is usually your first point to improve.
Six causes we see most often
The wrong traffic
Not every visitor is a potential customer. An installer who attracts visitors with a blog about replacing a tap yourself mainly gets DIYers. A restaurant found through a recipe does not attract bookings. Check in Google Search Console which search terms you are found for and whether they match what you sell. More on this in SEO for small businesses.
An unclear message
If a visitor does not quickly see what you do, for whom and in which area, they click back to the search results. General lines like “quality and service come first” say nothing. A garage that puts “MOT, servicing and repairs for all makes in Haarlem, an appointment today” at the top is clear at once.
Little trust
Making an enquiry is a small gamble. Visitors look for proof: real photos of your work or your premises, reviews, an address, a phone number and names or faces of the team. A site with only image-library photos and a contact form feels anonymous.
Too many hurdles
Every extra step costs visitors. Think of a form with required fields you only need later, a button that only appears at the bottom of the page or an enquiry that can only be sent by email. For a hair salon or yoga studio, “call us” is often a hurdle where online booking is not.
A poor mobile experience
Many small-business sites are designed on a large screen. On a phone, buttons then fall off screen, fields sit too close together or the page shifts while loading. Test every important page on your own phone.
A slow site
People who have to wait leave. Google measures the loading experience with the Core Web Vitals: a good score is an LCP of up to 2.5 seconds, an INP of up to 200 milliseconds and a CLS of up to 0.1. Measure on mobile with PageSpeed Insights.
Measure where the leak is
Without measuring, every change is a guess. You do not need a complicated dashboard, just a few figures per step.
- Arrival: through which pages and search terms do visitors arrive? Search Console and your analytics tool show this.
- Clicking through: how many visitors on a service page click through to your form or booking page?
- Starting the form: how many people start filling in the form?
- Completing the form: how many of them actually send it?
- Per device: put the same figures side by side for mobile and desktop.
The biggest drop between two steps shows where to start. Many visitors but little clicking through points to the message or trust. Many form starts but few submissions points to the form itself. A big gap between mobile and desktop points to the mobile layout or speed.
Change one thing at a time
Do not change everything at once. Pick the biggest leak, change one thing there and watch for a few weeks what it does. That way you know what works. With few visitors it takes longer to see a difference; then look mainly at what test users do.
Want a fresh pair of eyes? With the free website check we review your site for message, trust, forms, mobile layout and speed. You get back what we see and where we would start. Want a site that puts enquiries straight into your software? See the website with your software.
Frequently asked questions
Should I attract more visitors first?
Usually not. If the visitors you have now do not make an enquiry, more traffic to the same pages achieves little. Fix the leak first and then grow your reach.
How can I tell whether my visitors are the right people?
Check in Google Search Console which search terms you are found for and which pages visitors land on. If they do not match what you sell, you are attracting the wrong audience.
How long should I wait after a change?
That depends on your number of visitors. With little traffic you need several weeks to see a difference. That is why you change one thing at a time.