If your website is not generating enquiries, the cause is almost always one of three things. Either not enough of the right people are finding it, or the right people arrive but don't get in touch, or people do get in touch and the enquiry is lost before it reaches you. Each problem has a completely different fix, so the most useful thing you can do is work out which one you have before spending any more money.
That is what this guide is for. It works as a diagnostic: three short self-checks, each one built from steps you can do yourself with free tools and a bit of an afternoon. You don't need to be a marketer, and I'll explain any jargon as we go.
A quick note before we start: guessing is expensive. Many small business owners respond to a quiet website by buying more ads, rewriting the homepage or commissioning a redesign, when the real problem is a contact form that has been sending emails to a dead inbox for six months. Diagnose first, then fix.
The three problems at a glance
- Not enough of the right traffic. Few people visit, or the people who do visit were never likely to buy from you (wrong area, wrong intent, wrong service).
- Visitors arrive but don't enquire. The right people land on your site, but something stops them from calling, booking or filling in a form.
- Enquiries happen but are lost or not tracked. People try to contact you, but forms break, calls go unanswered, replies are slow, or you simply can't see what is happening.
You can have more than one of these at once, which is why it helps to check all three in order. Let's start with what you need to gather.
Before you start: gather three numbers
You don't need a dashboard full of charts. You need three simple figures from the last three months:
- How many people visited your website (visitors or sessions).
- How many enquiries you received from the website (calls, forms, emails, messages, bookings).
- How many of those enquiries became paying customers.
If you can't find the second number easily, that is already a clue, and we'll come back to it in problem 3. Visitor numbers come from a free analytics tool such as Google Analytics, which simply counts and describes the people who visit your site. If it isn't installed, that is your first job.
Problem 1: Not enough of the right traffic
Traffic means the people arriving on your website. Having more traffic only helps if it is the right traffic: people in your area, looking for what you actually sell, who are ready to act.
Your self-check
- Look at your monthly visitors. In your analytics, check the last three months. Is the number small, flat or falling? A very small number of visitors can't produce many enquiries, however good the site is.
- Check where visitors come from. Look for the split between Google search, paid ads, social media, direct visits and links from other sites. If almost everything comes from one source, you are vulnerable. Our guide to which marketing channels bring customers helps you judge which sources suit your business.
- Search for yourself like a customer would. Open a private browser window and search for your main service plus your town, for example "electrician Tunbridge Wells". Do you appear in the results or on the map? Your Google Business Profile (GBP, the free listing that shows your business on Google Maps) matters a great deal here, so it is worth checking that your profile is set up and managed properly.
- See which pages get the visits. In your analytics, look at the most visited pages. Are people landing on your service pages, or only on an old blog post that attracts the wrong audience?
- Check who is visiting. Look at the locations. If you serve Kent and most of your visitors are from another country, you have a relevance problem, not a design problem.
What the result tells you
If visitor numbers are low, or the visitors are mostly the wrong people, this is a traffic problem. The usual routes are SEO (search engine optimisation, which means making your site easier for Google to understand and recommend), local listings, and paid advertising. Our guide on how to increase website traffic covers these in detail. If your numbers look healthy and relevant, move on to problem 2.
Problem 2: Visitors arrive but don't enquire
This is where CRO comes in. CRO stands for conversion rate optimisation, which is a grand name for a simple idea: making small, evidence-based changes to your website so that a higher share of visitors do what you want them to do, such as call, book or send an enquiry. A "conversion" is just one of those actions. You are not trying to get more people through the door, only to make better use of those already there.
Your self-check
- Work out your conversion rate. Divide the number of enquiries by the number of visitors, then multiply by 100. Our step-by-step guide shows how to calculate your website conversion rate properly, including what counts as an enquiry.
- Do the five second test. Ask a friend who doesn't know your business to look at your homepage on their phone for five seconds. Then ask: what do we do, who is it for, and what would you do next? If they hesitate, your visitors do too.
- Use your own site on your own phone. Most visitors are on mobiles. Can you tap the phone number to call? Is the text readable? Is the form short, or does it ask for ten things before you can send it?
- Look for trust. Are there real reviews, photos of you or your work, clear prices or "from" prices, and an easy way to ask a question? People hesitate when they can't tell whether you are real and reliable.
- Check for a clear next step. Each key page should make it obvious what to do next. If a visitor has to hunt for your contact details, many won't bother.
What the result tells you
If people are visiting your service pages but very few enquire, and you fail a couple of these checks, you have a conversion problem. I have kept this section brief on purpose, because the detail lives elsewhere. For the full list of what puts people off, read 20 reasons customers leave your website. For the fixes, see our guide to turning website visitors into customers.
Problem 3: Enquiries happen but are lost or not tracked
This is the most overlooked problem, and often the cheapest to fix. Your website may be doing its job while enquiries leak away behind the scenes, or while you have no way of seeing them at all.
Your self-check
- Test every form yourself. Fill in each contact and booking form from your phone and from a computer. Does a confirmation appear? Does the email actually arrive? Check your spam or junk folder too.
- Check where the emails go. Forms are often set up to send to an old address, a former employee or a shared inbox nobody watches. Make sure the right person receives every message.
- Ring your own number. Call at different times, including lunchtime and early evening. Does someone answer? Is there a voicemail, and does anyone listen to it? Missed calls are missed customers.
- Time your follow-up. How long does it take from an enquiry arriving to a real reply? If it is more than a few hours during the working day, many people will have contacted someone else by then.
- Check you can see what is happening. Can you tell how many calls, form submissions and bookings came from the website last month, and which source sent them? If not, tracking is missing. Analytics, tracking and CRO support exists for exactly this reason.
- Ask new customers how they found you. Compare their answers with your records. If people say they filled in your form but you have no record, something is broken.
What the result tells you
If any form fails, any calls go unanswered or you can't see your enquiry numbers, you have a problem 3, and it should be fixed first. It makes everything else you measure more trustworthy.
A worked example
Imagine a plumber in Kent whose website gets 800 visitors a month and brings in 4 enquiries. That is a conversion rate of 0.5%, which feels disappointing. The owner assumes the site needs a redesign.
Working through the checks, they find the following. Traffic is fine, mostly from local searches (problem 1 passed). The homepage is clear but the mobile form asks for eight details (a small problem 2). Then they test the form and discover it has been sending messages to an old email address for months (a big problem 3). The real number of enquiries was higher than 4, and several people had been left waiting.
Fixing the email address cost nothing. Shortening the form took ten minutes. Neither needed a redesign or extra advertising. Your own situation will differ, and results vary, but the principle holds: check the cheap, boring things first.
Which problem should you fix first?
My suggested order is the reverse of how most people tackle it:
- Fix problem 3 first. Make sure enquiries arrive, get answered quickly and are counted. It is quick, low cost and gives you reliable numbers.
- Then work on problem 2. Make better use of the visitors you already have. This is often more affordable than buying more traffic.
- Then invest in problem 1. More traffic is worth paying for once the site converts and you can measure it. If you already run paid ads, see why Google Ads might not be generating enquiries for a diagnostic specific to paid search.
Pouring more visitors into a website with a leaky enquiry process is like filling a bath with the plug out.
Frequently asked questions
How many visitors does my website need to get enquiries?
There is no fixed number, because it depends on your conversion rate and on how well your traffic matches what you sell. For example, if 2 in every 100 visitors enquire, you would need around 500 visitors to expect 10 enquiries. A smaller number of well-matched visitors can beat a large number of random ones.
What is a good conversion rate for a small business website?
It varies a lot by industry, service price and traffic source, so I'd be wary of anyone quoting a universal figure. A better approach is to measure your own rate now, make improvements, and compare against yourself over time.
Do I need a new website to get more enquiries?
Not necessarily. Many sites improve with changes to wording, forms, trust signals and tracking. A new website can make sense if yours is very old, slow, hard to use on mobile or impossible to update, but test the simpler fixes first.
How long before I see a difference?
Fixing a broken form or a slow follow-up process can help straight away. Conversion changes usually need a few weeks of visitors to judge fairly. SEO tends to take months. Results vary, and anyone promising guaranteed rankings or enquiries should be treated with caution.
Can you help me work out what is wrong?
Yes. I work directly with every client, and a free digital audit is a good starting point. I'll look at your traffic, your website and your enquiry process, and tell you honestly where the biggest gaps are.
Not sure which problem you have?
If you have worked through the checks and still aren't certain, I'm happy to take a look. Request a free digital audit and I'll show you where enquiries are being lost, and what is worth fixing first.
Prefer to talk it through? You can get in touch and tell me a little about your business. We are a digital marketing agency with a human touch, and if we grow you, we grow together.
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