A website that brings in no enquiries usually has one of five problems: nobody finds it, it’s too slow, it doesn’t say what you do, there’s no obvious next step, or it doesn’t work properly on a phone. If it passes all five and the phone’s still quiet, there may not be enough demand for what you do where you are.
One: nobody’s finding it
Often the answer is the dullest one: the site is fine, and hardly anyone sees it.
How to tell: search for what you do plus your town (“physio Orewa”, “accountant Palmerston North”) in a private browsing window, so the results aren’t tuned to you. If you’re not on the first page, that’s your answer. Then search Google for site:yourbusiness.co.nz, using your own address. If nothing comes back, Google hasn’t taken your site in at all, which can happen to a new or rebuilt site.
The fix: for a local business, start with your Google Business Profile: claimed, filled in properly, the right categories, real photos and a few reviews. It’s free, and setting it up takes an afternoon. If Google hasn’t taken the site in, whoever built it can fix that through Google’s free Search Console, usually in an hour or so.
Two: it’s too slow, and you’d never know
If a page takes more than about three seconds to load on a phone, roughly half the people give up, on Google’s own research. Small gains count: in a Google and Deloitte study of 37 large brands’ sites, a tenth of a second faster on a phone meant 21.6% more people got through to the enquiry form (web.dev).
How to tell: your own site always feels fast to you, so check it on Google’s free speed test and read the Mobile score. 90 or better is good, and under 50 is poor.
The fix: resizing photos and switching off unused plugins and add-ons cost next to nothing. If the site still scores in the 50s or lower after that, a rebuild is the better use of your money.
Three: it doesn’t say what you do, or who for
Within a couple of seconds of landing on your homepage, someone needs to know what you do, where, and whether you’re for them. Plenty of small-business sites open with “Welcome to our website” and a photo of the building. Compare “Emergency plumbing across the Hibiscus Coast, seven days”: it could be the same business, and only one of them answers the question.
How to tell: show your homepage for five seconds to someone who doesn’t know your business, then take it away and ask what you do and where. If they hesitate, that’s the problem.
The fix: make the first line of the homepage say exactly that, with your phone number or one button right under it. It’s a heading and a sentence: free if you write it yourself, and an hour’s careful thinking.
Four: there’s no obvious next step
People won’t hunt. If the phone number is in the footer and the contact form is two clicks deep, plenty of interested people will leave.
How to tell: open your site on your phone and try to contact yourself. If it takes more than a couple of taps, you’ve found it.
The fix: pick the one action you want (calls, bookings or enquiries), make it obvious on every page, and make the phone number ring when it’s tapped. For whoever looks after your site, that’s usually an hour or two.
Five: it doesn’t work properly on a phone
A lot of people looking for a local business are on a phone. Text too small to read, buttons too close together, a menu that won’t open, a form that’s a nuisance to fill in with a thumb: any of those costs you enquiries.
How to tell: do the whole thing on your phone, on mobile data, the way a customer would.
The fix: small text and cramped buttons can often be fixed in the site’s theme or settings in an afternoon or less. A site that was never built for phones usually can’t be patched into one, and that’s a rebuild.
The one that isn’t on this list
If a site passes all five and the phone still isn’t ringing, usually not enough people are looking for what you offer in your area. A better site makes the most of demand that already exists, but it can’t invent it.
Start with the two you can measure
While one of these problems stands, the money spent on the site and any advertising pointed at it buys nothing. Once it’s fixed, the site does the job you paid for and the phone rings.
Run the free report on your site. It emails you Google’s speed score out of 100, usually within five minutes, with a plain-English note on what’s slowing it. Every site we build has to score 90 or better on that same mobile test before it goes live, so you’ll know what good looks like. If yours comes back quick, you’ve ruled out reason two.