Your website gets visitors but no enquiries

Before you start

You can try the page and form checks below yourself. If you do not have reports about visits, ask whoever manages your website what is available. I can help check the numbers and investigate problems you find.

Decide what you are counting

Write down the result you need: a delivered enquiry, a completed appointment request, or a call. Keep each result separate from the button someone clicked on the way there.

Choose a period you can also check against your inbox or booking records. Ask whether the visit count includes your own tests or visits unrelated to your service. If the report counts every click on the contact button as an enquiry, ask for that to be corrected before using it to judge the site.

Check who is arriving and where

Website reports are sometimes called analytics. They can show which pages people open, whether they use a phone or computer, and where visits appear to come from. Traffic means visits to the website; a traffic source is where a visit came from, such as a search result or an advert.

Start with the pages people open first. Do those pages describe a service you offer? If you run adverts, do they link to the right page? A visitor looking for instructions may read a guide without needing to hire you.

Tracking means recording selected actions, such as opening a page or clicking a link. Reports can miss activity when people decline optional tracking, their browser (the app used to visit websites) blocks it, or it has not been set up correctly. Some reports estimate missing activity. Ask which numbers were recorded and which were estimated. If the source of a visit is unknown, leave it unknown.

If few potential customers visit, a quiet week may not tell you much about the design. Fix a broken contact form when you find one. Wait for more evidence before deciding that a different layout will bring more enquiries.

Check the first page your customer sees

The first page someone opens is sometimes called a landing page. It could be a service page or guide, even if you think of the homepage as the start of your site. Check whether that first page explains what is offered, who it is for, the area covered and how to get in touch.

Ask someone unfamiliar with the website to try a realistic task, such as finding out whether you serve their area and how to ask about one service. Watch where they look and ask them to explain their thinking. Avoid telling them which button to press. This is usability testing: watching someone try a task to find out where they get stuck. GOV.UK's guide to testing a website with someone explains the approach.

If they hesitate, record the question they could not answer. A clearer description, a relevant piece of real work or an explanation of what happens after contacting you may be more useful than another decorative section. The website planning guide can help you choose the main customer task.

Test the contact route on a phone

Open the page on a phone and follow its main action. Check that the menu opens, the button can be tapped and a fixed banner does not cover the form or its final action. Try moving through the form with a keyboard as well.

Read the questions. A field is a box or control where you enter an answer. Its label tells you what to enter, such as your name or email address. Does that label stay visible after you start typing? A faint hint inside an empty box disappears when you type, so it cannot replace the label. The W3C web-accessibility guide explains this in more detail.

For each question the customer must answer, ask why you need it at this stage. Mark questions they can skip as optional. You can often ask for finer detail after the first message. The GOV.UK guide to asking questions recommends asking for information you need and making the purpose clear.

Check what happens when someone sends the form

Test only a website you own or have permission to test. Arrange the check with whoever receives the enquiries. Use your own contact details and label the message as a website test so it cannot be mistaken for a customer request. If the form creates bookings, charges money or triggers follow-up messages, ask the developer to use a safe test arrangement first.

Try a missing required answer before sending the agreed test. The error should identify what needs fixing and help you reach that field. Your other answers should remain in place. GOV.UK's error-message guidance covers these recovery details.

Send the labelled test once, then check the full sequence:

1. After you press Send, the website tells you whether it accepted the message and what happens next.
2. The message reaches the right inbox with the details intact. Check junk folders too. If email is automatically passed on to another address, check that inbox as well.
3. When the person receiving the message presses Reply, the reply is addressed to the email you entered in the form.
4. If the website records these actions in a report, ask the person who manages it to check that one test is counted once at the right step. A button click alone must not be labelled a completed enquiry.

A success message alone does not prove email delivery. A message arriving without clear on-screen confirmation can also leave the sender unsure whether to try again. W3C's form-feedback guidance and the GOV.UK confirmation pattern explain how to tell people the result and next step.

Turn the findings into a short work list

Write down the page address, the phone or computer used, what you tried and what happened. Fix problems you can repeat first, such as a button that fails each time. If you review a recording of someone's visit, repeated clicks can show where to investigate. They cannot tell you what that person was thinking.

Agree which problem to fix, note when the change goes live and try the same task again. When comparing later enquiry numbers, count them the same way over a suitable period. A rise or fall alone does not prove that a website change caused it.