Your website isn't generating leads for one of six reasons, and they come in a fixed order: nobody is finding it, the people who find it are the wrong people, the page does not say what you do and where, there is no obvious way to contact you, the site does not earn trust, or the site is too slow and clumsy on a phone to get that far. The order matters because the fix for each is different, and because a redesign only solves the last four.
Work down the list. Stop at the first one that is true for you.
1. Nobody is finding the site
Open Google in a private window and search for your trade and your town, the way a customer would: "roof repair Columbus IN", "dentist near Hope Indiana", "plumber Shelbyville". If your business is not in the map results or on the first screen of listings, the website is not the problem yet. It has no visitors to convert.
Two things decide this for a local business, and only one of them is the website:
- Your Google Business Profile. The map listing with the reviews and the phone number. It needs your real address or service area, your primary category set to what you actually do, your hours, photos of your own work, and a steady trickle of reviews. Most of the calls a local business gets from Google come through this listing, not the website. If you are wondering whether you need a site at all, does my business need a website answers that.
- The website's basics. A page title that names the trade and the town, a headline that does the same, one page per service you want to be found for, and nothing blocking Google from reading it.
How to check the second one: search Google for `site:yourdomain.com`. If nothing comes back, your site is not indexed and nothing else on this list matters until it is. If pages come back but their titles read "Home" or "Welcome", that is the next thing to fix.
If you are not sure what Google can see on your site, the free website audit reads the page the way a crawler does and tells you whether the title, headline and sitemap are there.
The two halves of being found each have their own guide: why your website isn't showing up on Google works through the site, and Google Business Profile for a local business works through the listing, and local SEO explained for owners puts the two together. If you are wondering what a web designer should handle for you here, can you handle SEO and domains? sets out what is included and what is not.
2. The visitors are the wrong people
Traffic that never turns into a lead is often traffic that was never going to. A roofer who ranks for "how to patch a shingle" gets homeowners who want to do it themselves. A dentist whose site ranks for "what does a cavity look like" gets students writing a report.
Look at which pages get the visits (Google Search Console shows this for free, page by page). If the busy pages are articles and the quiet pages are your service pages, the site is attracting readers, not buyers. The fix is not more content. It is service pages written for the person who is ready to call, and a clear next step on every article you keep. Website traffic but no leads walks through this case on its own. If you are thinking of paying for ads, fix the page they land on first.
3. The page does not say what you do and where
Load your homepage on your phone. Do not scroll. Can a stranger answer these three questions from what is on the screen?
- What does this business do?
- Where does it do it?
- How do I get in touch right now?
Most local business sites fail this test, and they fail it the same way: the headline is a slogan ("Quality you can trust"), the service area is somewhere in the footer, and the phone number is behind a menu. The person who landed on your page from a search already knows what they need. They are checking whether you are the one to call. Make it obvious. If you have no storefront, a website for a service-area business covers how to say where you work.
A headline that works is a plain sentence: "Roof repairs and replacements for Columbus, Indiana homes." Under it, the two or three things you most want to be hired for. Under that, a button that calls you on a phone and a second one that opens the form. That is the whole job of the top of the page. The homepage checklist goes through the rest of the page in the same spirit, and turning visitors into customers explains the thinking behind it.
4. There is no obvious way to contact you
This is the one that is easiest to fix and most often wrong. Check each of these on a phone:
- Tapping the phone number dials it. If it is text and not a link, it does not.
- The contact form asks for a name, a phone or email, and what they need, and nothing else. Every extra field loses people.
- Something happens after they submit. A confirmation on screen, and an email to you within a minute. Send yourself a test; a surprising number of forms deliver to an inbox nobody reads. Contact form not working? has the five-minute test.
- The form and the phone number are on every page, not just the contact page.
If you fix nothing else today, fix this. A site that makes contact easy will out-produce a prettier site that does not. How to get more calls from your website lists the six changes that matter most.
5. The site does not earn trust
A visitor who can see what you do and how to reach you still has to decide to. That decision is made on a few specific things, and they are all checkable:
- Reviews. Real ones, with the source named, and a link to the place they can go and read the rest. A page that shows a Google rating and links to the Google listing is believed; a page with five anonymous quotes is not. How to get more Google reviews covers asking for them and showing them.
- Photos of your own work. A roof you put on, a bathroom you plumbed, your actual office. Stock photos of a smiling model in a hard hat do the opposite of what you want, and most people can tell.
- Who you are. A name, a face, how long you have been doing this, the licence you hold. People hire people.
- Plain promises. Say what you actually do: "Written quote before we start", "We answer the phone ourselves". Do not say things you cannot stand behind, and do not pad the list.
A site that is missing all four reads as a brochure for a business that might not exist. Adding two of them changes that. Six signs your website is costing you customers is the quick version of this check.
6. The site is slow and awkward on a phone
Most people looking for a local business are on a phone, often in a hurry, sometimes standing in the problem. If your page takes several seconds to show anything, or the text is tiny, or the buttons are too small to tap, they go back to the search results and call the next listing.
The quickest check: open your site on your own phone over mobile data, not Wi-Fi, and count. If you are waiting, so are they. The usual causes are enormous photos straight off a camera, a page builder loading things you never use, and a theme that was designed for a desktop screen in a different decade. Why your website is slow covers the four causes and which are fixable.
Which of these is a rebuild, and which is an afternoon
Reasons 1 and 2 are not fixed by a new website. They are fixed by your Google listing, by page titles, and by writing service pages for the right searches. Reasons 3, 4 and 5 are usually fixable on the site you have, if it is editable and you can get to the page. If you can't, because whoever built it has gone quiet, what to do when your web designer disappears and the website handoff kit cover getting it back. Who looks after it matters too: what hosting and maintenance cover explains what you should be getting. Reason 6 is the one that most often means starting again: a slow, non-mobile site built on an old theme costs more to untangle than to replace. If your site is on Wix, Squarespace or GoDaddy, why a builder site isn't getting leads covers the five usual problems.
The honest version: if your site is editable, mobile-friendly and just badly arranged, fix it. If it is on a platform you cannot edit, was built before phones mattered, or needs three of the six fixes at once, a rebuild is the cheaper route. Fix it or start over is the longer version of that decision, and what a small business website costs explains what moves the price of the rebuild.
What to do this week
- Search your trade and town in a private window. Note whether your Google listing and your site appear.
- Open your homepage on your phone and answer the three questions in reason 3 without scrolling.
- Tap your own phone number. Submit your own form. See what arrives.
- Count your real reviews and your real photos on the page.
- Time the page on mobile data.
Or let us do the first pass for you. The free 10-point website audit checks the things a machine can check (the title, the headline, whether Google can read the site, whether the page is mobile-friendly, whether there is a way to call you) and shows you what to fix first. If the answer is that the site needs rebuilding, the pricing page says what that costs; if the answer is three small fixes, we will say that instead.
Once the leaks are fixed, how to get more leads from your website covers what to change next.
If you are in a trade, the same six reasons show up with a different emphasis. See what a lead-generating site looks like for roofers, plumbers or dentists.