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Why Your Website Is Not Generating Leads (And What to Fix First)
Most small business owners assume their website is "fine." It loads, it looks reasonable, it has their phone number on it. But fine does not generate enquiries. Here are the three problems we see on almost every site we audit — and how to fix them.
01 No Clear Next Step — Visitors Do Not Know What You Want Them to Do
The most common conversion problem is not traffic or design — it is the absence of a clear call to action. Most small business sites have a phone number in the footer and a contact page buried in the nav. That is not a conversion path, it is a last resort.
A visitor who lands on your homepage has a problem they want solved. Within 5 seconds they are deciding whether you can solve it. If the next step is not obvious — book a call, get a quote, request a callback — they leave. Not because your service is wrong for them. Because you did not guide them.
What a good CTA looks like
One primary action per page, above the fold, with a benefit attached. Not "Contact Us" — "Get a Free Quote in 24 Hours." Not "Learn More" — "See How We Have Helped Trades Businesses Like Yours."
Every page on a well-built site has one job. The homepage job is to qualify the visitor and move them to a service page or contact action. The service page job is to convert. If your pages are trying to do everything, they are doing nothing.
02 Too Slow to Compete — You Are Losing Rankings and Visitors
A slow website costs you twice. First, Google penalises slow sites in search rankings — meaning fewer people find you at all. Second, the people who do find you leave before the page loads.
53% of mobile users abandon a page that takes more than 3 seconds to load. On shared hosting — which most small business sites run on — 3 seconds is optimistic. During a busy period on the server, your page could be taking 5 to 8 seconds.
How to check your speed right now
Go to pagespeed.web.dev and enter your URL. Run both mobile and desktop. A score below 70 on mobile is a problem. Below 50 is urgent.
Common culprits: large unoptimised images, Google Fonts loading from an external server, JavaScript that runs before the page renders, and shared hosting with no CDN.
Fixing speed often requires either a hosting upgrade or a rebuild on a faster stack. Our Astro and Cloudflare Pages builds consistently hit 90+ on mobile — not because we are clever, but because the architecture is designed for it from the ground up.
03 No Trust Signals — Visitors Cannot Tell if You Are Legitimate
Online, trust has to be earned visually — because visitors cannot meet you, see your office, or shake your hand. A website that looks dated or generic signals risk to a potential client, even subconsciously.
Trust signals are not just about looking professional. They are specific proof points that answer the question every visitor is silently asking: Can I trust this business with my money and my problem?
Trust signals that actually move the needle
- → Real photos (not stock) — of you, your team, your work
- → Specific results — "42 five-star Google reviews" beats "great service"
- → Named testimonials with suburb or business type
- → Logos of recognised certifications, associations, or past clients
- → A visible phone number — not buried, not just a form
- → An SSL certificate — the padlock in the browser bar
The bar for trust in your industry is probably lower than you think. If your competitors are all running outdated WordPress sites with stock photos, a clean modern site with real photos and a handful of genuine reviews will stand out immediately.
The Honest Audit Test
Open your website on your phone. Pretend you have never seen it before. Ask yourself three questions:
- 1. Within 5 seconds, do I know exactly what this business does and who it is for?
- 2. Is there an obvious next step I can take right now?
- 3. Do I trust this business enough to call or fill in a form?
If the answer to any of those is "not really" — that is your lead problem. A free audit will show you exactly where the gaps are with real data, not guesswork.
All three of these problems are fixable. Some can be addressed without a rebuild — a hosting upgrade, a copy tweak, a CTA repositioned. Others need a fresh foundation. A free audit will tell you which situation you are in before you spend a dollar.