6 min read

Nine small business website mistakes that cost you enquiries

These are the issues we see most often when someone asks why their site is not generating enquiries. None require a rebuild to fix, and most take under an hour.

1. Your phone number is not clickable

On mobile, a phone number should be a tel: link that dials when tapped. If yours is plain text, you are asking people to memorise it and switch apps. Some will not bother.

2. No location anywhere on the page

If you serve a specific area, say so in text — not only in a map embed, which search engines read poorly and visitors scroll past. Someone landing on your site should know within seconds whether you cover them.

3. Your contact form goes nowhere useful

Test it. Genuinely, right now. Submissions landing in a spam folder or an unmonitored inbox is common, and it is silent — you never know about the enquiries you lost.

4. No prices, not even a range

Plenty of businesses have good reasons for not publishing prices. But a total absence means every enquiry starts with is this even in my budget, and many people will not ask. A range, a from figure, or an explanation of what drives cost all reduce that friction.

5. Stock photos of people who do not work for you

Visitors are checking whether you are real. A slightly imperfect photo of your actual team or work outperforms a polished stock image, particularly for trades and local services.

6. It says what you do but not who for

We provide quality solutions tells nobody anything. We build production systems for UK electronics manufacturers lets the right person recognise themselves immediately — and gives search engines something specific to match.

7. The call to action is buried

Someone convinced halfway down the page should not have to scroll to the bottom to find out how to reach you. Repeat the contact route at natural decision points.

8. No evidence

Testimonials, case studies, photos of finished work, named clients. Claims about quality are worth very little; evidence is worth a lot. One specific, genuine testimonial beats five generic ones.

9. It is slow on mobile

Run PageSpeed Insights on the mobile tab. Under 50 means visitors are leaving before they see anything. Usually the cause is oversized images, which is among the cheapest problems to fix.

More reading

Need this done properly?

We build websites and business software for UK companies. Scoped and quoted before we start.