Websites
Website gets traffic but no leads? Check these, in order
Published by Zubair Afzal, responsible editor
First published Updated 5 min read
Prove the path works before you change a single word
When a site gets visitors and no enquiries, the first assumption is usually persuasion: weak copy, dated design, an unclear offer. Sometimes that’s right. Often the enquiries are being made and aren’t arriving.
A form that submits and sends nothing. A notification going to an inbox nobody opens. A tracked phone number routed to a line that rings out. None of these produce an error, and all look exactly like a conversion problem.
So the order of work is fixed. Prove the path works, then fix what the page fails to say, then remove the friction, then answer faster. The first step is free and is wrong more often than anyone expects.
The sequence
Four steps, in this order
Each step is cheaper than the one after it, which is why the order matters more than the content.
Test the path end to end
Submit the form from a phone, on a browser you aren’t signed into, with a recognisable name. Confirm it arrives where it should, including the spam folder. Ring every number on the site and confirm each one reaches a person. Check who receives the notifications and whether that person still works here.
You get: A confirmed enquiry and a confirmed call, with dates
Read the page as somebody who has never heard of you
In the first screen, can a stranger tell what you do, who for, where and roughly what it costs? Most pages answer the first and skip the rest. A reader who can’t tell whether they qualify leaves instead of asking.
You get: Four answers, written down, or a list of what is missing
Remove the friction from the ask
Delete every form field you don’t need before you can reply. Put a phone number and an email address in view for people who won’t use a form. Say what happens next and when. Then check it all on a phone, where most of it happens.
You get: A shorter form, a visible alternative, a stated response time
Answer faster than you do now
Measure how long an enquiry waits for a human reply, as a median and a worst case. Then shorten it. This sits outside the website and often does more for won work than anything done to a page, which is why it belongs in the sequence.
You get: A response time you have measured, and a target
Telling them apart
Four symptoms and what each usually means
These look identical in a traffic report and have completely different fixes.
| Dimension | What it usually means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Visits are steady, enquiries went to zero on a date | Something broke. Forms, notifications, a number, a tag. | Find the date, compare it with your change log, and test the path end to end. |
| Plenty of visits, almost all to articles | The traffic is informational and was never going to enquire. | Judge conversion on the pages where somebody chooses a supplier, and build more of those. |
| People reach the contact page and don’t submit | Friction or hesitation at the last step. | Cut the fields, add an alternative way to make contact, and say what happens next. |
| Enquiries arrive and nothing is won | Not a website problem. Usually price, fit, or how long the reply takes. | Measure time to first response before changing anything on the site. |
The uncomfortable part
Say who you aren’t for
The change that most reliably improves enquiry quality is the one owners resist hardest. Say outright who the work isn’t for: below a certain size, outside an area, a type of job you don’t take.
It feels like turning away business and does the opposite. A reader who recognises themselves in who you work with is far more likely to ask, and one who recognises themselves in the exclusions was never going to buy.
It also improves the enquiries that do arrive: fewer conversations that were never going anywhere, and a cost per qualified enquiry that means something.
Questions
Common questions about traffic that doesn’t convert
How do I know whether the traffic is just wrong?
Look at what people searched for before arriving, and which pages they land on. If most visits land on articles and information pages, that traffic was never going to enquire.
Judge the pages where somebody is choosing a supplier. Measure enquiries against visits to those pages only, and the picture usually becomes much clearer.
Should I reduce the number of form fields?
Almost always. Every field should be something you need before you can reply. Budget ranges, company size and how they heard about you are questions for the conversation, not the gate.
Name, one way to reach them and a sentence about the job is enough for most service businesses.
Does adding live chat help?
Only if somebody answers it. An unanswered chat widget is worse than none, because it invites a question and then ignores it in public.
If nobody can staff it during working hours, put a phone number and a response-time promise in its place, and keep it.
Should I put prices on the site?
Put something: a range, a starting point, a worked example, or a plain explanation of what drives the number. Pages with no price signal filter out the people who can’t afford you and the people who could.
If the number depends on a site visit, say so, and say what a typical job has cost. Silence is read as expensive.
When is a redesign the answer?
When the structure is the problem, not the pages: no page for the main service, navigation nobody can use, a template that can’t show what the work looks like, or a site that’s unusable on a phone.
A redesign is an expensive way to fix a form, a missing price or a slow reply, yet it’s often proposed for exactly those.
References
Sources for website gets traffic but no leads
The official documents and research this page is based on. Platform rules change, so check the source before you act on a detail.
Related
Keep reading on website gets traffic but no leads
- website and conversion workIf the page itself turns out to be the problem.
- building a baseline of your ownWhat to compare against once the path works.
- the silent faults that swallow enquiriesWhere the broken form is diagnosed properly.
- the numbers that would have shown thisIncluding time to first response.
- send us the page and we’ll read it
Start here
Send us the page, not the brief
If you have done the first two steps and the enquiries still aren’t coming, send the page. We’ll tell you what a stranger can’t work out from it, and whether that’s worth paying anybody to change.
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