Last updated 21 October 2026
Why is my website not getting leads?
Short version: if people are visiting and not ringing, something between the visit and the call is leaking. It is nearly always one of six things, and each has a free test you can run this afternoon. Check them in order, because the first ones are the cheapest to fix and the likeliest to be the whole problem.
Do not redesign anything, and do not pay for more visitors, until you know which one it is. Every extra visitor walks through the same leak.
The six leaks
Work down the list, top to bottom.
Each row is a different problem with a different fix. The third column is where you go to prove it, so you are not guessing.
| Leak | What it looks like | Where to prove it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Wrong visitors | Visits from people who were never going to hire you | GA4 Traffic acquisition and Landing page; Search Console queries |
| 2. Cannot contact you | The phone link or form fails, sometimes without anyone knowing | Your own phone, your inbox and spam folder, GA4 Realtime |
| 3. Broken on a phone | Slow, jumpy or fiddly on a mobile | PageSpeed Insights, mobile tab |
| 4. No reason to pick you | They read, then ring someone with more proof | Business Profile calls and website clicks |
| 5. The ask is too big | They start the form and give up | Form starts against form submits in GA4 |
| 6. Slow reply | They did get in touch; someone else answered first | Your missed calls, messages and inbox |
One check before you start: the season. Compare the same month last year in your analytics and your diary. A kitchen fitter on the Screwfix forum saw his website views falling in late autumn while orders were still coming in. Fewer visits in a quiet month is the calendar. Fewer leads from the same number of visits is a leak.
Leak one
Are they even the right people?
A plumber getting visits from people searching how to fix their own tap, or from a town they do not cover, has traffic and no buyers. Free screens tell you who is turning up:
| Where | Menu path | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics 4 | Acquisition > Traffic acquisition | Which channel each visit came from: search, ads, social, direct |
| GA4 landing pages | Engagement > Landing page | The first page each visit landed on |
| Search Console | Performance, Queries tab | The words people actually typed before clicking through |
| Business Profile | Performance | Calls (taps on your call button) and website clicks, counted separately |
Read the Search Console queries first. If they are DIY questions, job adverts or places you do not work, the website is doing its job for the wrong audience. If they are buyers in your area, the visitors are fine and the leak is further down. If the visits are paid clicks, the search terms in your ads account are the place to look; see why Google Ads are not working.
The Business Profile counters are the split most trades never look at. Google counts calls from the button on your listing separately from clicks through to your website, and says the figures include both normal search results and Google Ads. Plenty of calls from the listing but little from the website points at the website. Few of either points at being found, which is a Google Maps problem, not a website one.
Leak two: the silent one
Can anyone actually reach you?
This is the one that costs the most, because nobody tells you. A business owner on UK Business Forums put it exactly: the form "appears to work and goes through to thank you page but email either doesn't get sent or isn't received." The customer thinks they have asked you. You never hear about it.
Run this test on your own site, today, on your phone:
Tap the phone number
It should start a call. If nothing happens, it is plain text, not a link. Write the link with +44 and the leading 0 dropped (tel:+447...), because the standard for phone links says a full number starts with + and the country code, with no spaces.
Fill in the form on mobile data
Not on your office wifi. Use a name you will recognise, send it, and note the time.
Check the inbox and the spam folder
Since February 2024 Google requires every sender to authenticate their domain with SPF or DKIM. A form that emails you from an unauthenticated address can land in spam.
Watch it arrive in Analytics
GA4's Realtime report shows the last 30 minutes, including key events. If your form submission or phone tap is marked as a key event (Admin > Data display > Events, then the star), you will see your test land.
Do it again once a month. Forms break when a plugin updates, a hosting plan changes or a mailbox fills up, and nothing on the page will look any different. Once it works, mark the form and the phone tap as key events so you are counting leads, not visits.
Leak three
Judge it on a phone, not your laptop.
Ofcom's figures make the case: smartphones account for 77% of the time UK adults spend online, and around one in five adults online use only a smartphone. The person with a leak under the sink is holding a phone, so test every part of the website on one.
Ignore the "under three seconds" rule you see everywhere; Google publishes its actual marks, the Core Web Vitals:
| Measure | What it means | Good | Poor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint | How long until the main content shows | 2.5 seconds or less | Over 4 seconds |
| Interaction to Next Paint | How fast the page reacts to a tap | 200 ms or less | Over 500 ms |
| Cumulative Layout Shift | How much the page jumps as it loads | 0.1 or less | Over 0.25 |
Run your home page through PageSpeed Insights and read the mobile tab. A page passes when all three are good for most real visits over the last 28 days. Most small trade websites do not get enough visits for Google to have that real-visitor data, and the report will say so. In that case the simulated mobile test underneath is the one to go by.
Leak four
Do they have a reason to pick you?
If the right people arrive, the phone link works and the page is quick, but they still go elsewhere, the website is not giving them a reason to choose you. A visitor is comparing you with the two other tabs they have open: who you are, what you do, where you work, real photos, real reviews, and one obvious next step.
We have written that checklist up in full, with a five-minute test you can do on your phone, in what makes a good tradesman website. If the gap is proof, start with getting more Google reviews, because a website can only show the proof you have.
Leak five
Ask for less, and ask it first.
Ofcom asked the people who go online only on a smartphone, and 49% of them said they struggle to fill in forms on a phone compared with a laptop. A form with ten boxes, a dropdown for the type of job and a required postcode is a wall for exactly the person most likely to be ringing you.
Every field you add is another reason to stop. Ask for a name, a number and what the job is, and get the rest on the phone. If you use Google Analytics, compare form starts with form submits: Google's enhanced measurement counts both, and lots of starts with few submits is this leak, in numbers. For people who will not ring at all, a quick price or a booking slot asks less than a blank form; you can see the kind of tools we mean on our conversion tools page.
Leak six
The lead came in. Then what?
Sometimes the website is working and the leak is after it. A missed call with no text back, a form that sits in an inbox until the weekend, a quote that goes out and is never chased. Look at the last ten leads you know about and how long each waited for a real answer.
The fixes are cheap: a text that goes out when you miss a call, a fixed time each day for replies, and a follow-up when a quote goes quiet. See how fast to reply to a lead, how to get more calls, call answering services and how to follow up a quote.
This afternoon
An hour, in this order.
| Check | Time | What you are looking for |
|---|---|---|
| The contact test | 10 minutes | Tap the number, send the form on mobile data, check inbox and spam |
| Who is visiting | 10 minutes | Search Console queries, then GA4 Traffic acquisition: local buyers or not |
| The listing | 10 minutes | Business Profile performance: calls against website clicks |
| The phone | 10 minutes | PageSpeed Insights mobile tab, then count the fields on your own form |
| The last ten leads | 20 minutes | How long each waited, and what happened to the quotes that went quiet |
If you come out of that thinking the website itself is the problem rather than one fixable leak, read do I need a website before spending anything.
Straight answers
Questions owners actually ask.
- Why is my website getting visitors but no leads?
- Usually one of six leaks, and they are worth checking in order: the visitors are the wrong people, they cannot contact you because the phone link or form is broken, they cannot use the site on a phone, they see no reason to pick you, the first thing you ask of them is too big, or they did get in touch and the reply came too late. Each one has a free test, so find the leak before you redesign anything.
- How do I know where my website visitors come from?
- In Google Analytics 4, open Acquisition > Traffic acquisition to see the channels, then Engagement > Landing page to see the first page each visit landed on. Search Console's Performance report shows the actual searches people typed before clicking through. Your Google Business Profile performance screen counts calls and website clicks from your listing separately.
- How do I check my contact form is working?
- Fill it in yourself on your phone, on mobile data, then check your inbox and your spam folder. If you use Google Analytics, open the Realtime report while you do it: it shows the last 30 minutes, so you can watch the submission arrive. Since February 2024 Google has required every sender to authenticate their domain with SPF or DKIM, so a form that emails you from an unauthenticated address can be filtered as spam.
- How fast should my website load?
- Google's own marks are the Core Web Vitals: the main content should appear within 2.5 seconds, the page should respond to a tap within 200 milliseconds, and the layout should not jump (a shift score of 0.1 or less). A small trade website often has too few visits for Google's real-visitor data, so run PageSpeed Insights and read the mobile test.
- Is it my website or just the time of year?
- Check the season before you change anything. Compare the same month last year in your analytics and your diary. One kitchen fitter on the Screwfix forum noticed views falling in late autumn while orders were still coming in. Fewer visits in a quiet month is not a broken website; fewer leads from the same visits is.
- What is the biggest mistake with a website that is not working?
- Paying for more visitors before finding the leak. Every visitor you add goes through the same broken phone link, slow page or long form. Run the six free tests first; they cost nothing.
Rather have a website that just rings?
See what it costs, then tell us about your business and we'll show you a website built to turn visits into calls, with every one of these leaks closed from day one. Got a question first? Just message us.