Six website mistakes that cost you enquiries
Your website has one job. Turn the right visitors into enquiries. Most business websites fail at it in the same handful of ways — and because the failures are silent, the enquiries that never arrive leave no trace.
Here are the six mistakes we see most often, and what to do about each.
1. The page takes too long to load
Google's research found that 53% of mobile visitors abandon a page that takes longer than three seconds to load. Recent data from Deloitte showed that improving load time by just 0.1 seconds measurably lifted conversions across retail and travel sites.
Speed is a revenue lever, and most small business sites are slow for the same reasons. Oversized images, bloated page builders, and a decade of plugins stacked on top of each other. The visitors you paid to attract through ads, content or referrals leave before the page finishes drawing.
The fix. Compress every image, audit every plugin and test your site on a real phone over mobile data rather than office wifi. If the platform itself is the problem, a rebuild on a performance-first stack pays for itself in recovered visitors.
2. The visitor can't tell what you want them to do
Land on your homepage and count the options. A menu with nine items, three competing buttons, a newsletter pop-up and a chat widget. Every extra choice splits attention, and split attention leaves.
Strong websites decide what the one next step is — book a call, request a quote, view the work — and make that step unmissable on every page.
The fix. Pick one primary action. Give it the most visually prominent button on the page, repeat it at natural decision points, and demote everything else.
3. The copy is about you, not them
Count how many sentences on your homepage start with "we". Now count how many address the customer's actual problem. Most business websites are autobiographies. Visitors arrive with a question — can these people solve my problem? — and get an answer to a question nobody asked.
The fix. Rewrite your key pages to open with the customer's situation. Their goal, their frustration, their next step. Your credentials belong in the supporting cast.
4. There's no proof
Claims are free, and visitors know it. Every competitor says they're trusted, experienced and passionate about quality. Without evidence — named clients, real results, testimonials with faces attached, case studies with numbers — your claims blend into everyone else's.
The fix. Gather proof before you polish prose. One specific testimonial ("enquiries doubled in three months") outperforms a page of adjectives. If you're early and short on testimonials, show the work itself.
5. The process is a mystery
A visitor who likes what they see still hesitates at the button. What happens if I enquire? Will I get a sales pitch? How much does this cost? Uncertainty is friction, and friction kills enquiries from people who were ready to buy.
The fix. Tell them what happens next, right beside the call to action. "Book a 15-minute call. We'll ask about your project and give you an honest steer on scope and cost." Pricing guidance helps too — even a "projects start from" figure filters out mismatches and reassures everyone else.
6. Mobile is an afterthought
For most businesses, more than half of visits now come from phones. Yet sites are still designed, reviewed and approved on large desktop screens, then merely checked on mobile. Menus that need surgeon-level precision, text that requires pinching, forms that fight the keyboard.
The fix. Review your site on your own phone, start to finish, as if you were a customer. Complete the enquiry form. Anything that annoys you is costing you.
The common thread
Every one of these mistakes comes from the same root. The site was built from the inside out — around the business's structure, the founder's preferences, the platform's defaults — instead of around the visitor's journey from curious to convinced.
Flip the perspective and the fixes get obvious. Speed respects the visitor's time. One clear action respects their attention. Customer-first copy respects their reason for coming. Proof respects their scepticism. A transparent process respects their caution. Mobile-first design respects how they actually browse.
Respect converts.
Want to know which of these your site is guilty of? Book a call and we'll review it with you, no charge and no jargon.
