5 signs your website is costing you customers (and how a professional solves this)

You have a website. It is there, it looks tidy, and still little comes out of it. Few enquiries, few phone calls, and if you are honest you do not know exactly why.

A website that delivers nothing does not only cost you the amount you once paid for it. Every month it costs you again the people who do land on your page and then leave.

The good news: it almost always comes down to a handful of causes. Below we walk through the five signs we come across most often.

Why your website costs you customers without you noticing

A broken website you notice straight away. A website that merely underperforms, you never notice.

Visitors who drop off do not send you a message. They do not tell you your site was too slow or that they could not find the contact button. They click back and go to the next result.

Convert it into people. If 500 visitors come per month and five get in touch, that is one in a hundred. If that goes to two in a hundred, you double your enquiries without spending a euro more on advertising. The same visitors, a different outcome.

Sign 1: your website loads too slowly

This sign costs the most and stands out the least. You look at your own website from the office, on a fast connection, and your browser has already remembered everything. For you it loads fine.

Your customer is somewhere else. On a phone, on the go, with a mediocre signal. If it takes longer than a few seconds there before anything appears, part of your visitors is gone before they have read your company name.

How to recognise it: open your website on your phone over mobile internet, so not over wifi, and count out loud. You can measure it for free with Google PageSpeed Insights, which gives you a score with improvement points.

What to do about it: the biggest gains usually sit in images that are too heavy, too many plug-ins, and hosting that shares its space with too many other websites. All three can be solved without a new website. And speed slips away again as soon as nobody watches it: which parts to keep an eye on, from hosting and images to caching, is set out in website maintenance is more than running updates.

Sign 2: the design looks outdated

Visitors form their judgement of your business within a few seconds, and they base it on what they see. A website that looks as if it was last touched ten years ago gives the impression that the business is standing still too. Usually that is unfair, but you get no chance to explain it.

This is not about fashion. It is about trust. Someone choosing between you and a competitor picks the party that looks well kept.

How to recognise it: put your website next to those of three competitors on the same screen. Does yours stand out as old-fashioned? Then that is what your customer sees too. Also watch for old years, prices that no longer apply and texts about services you no longer offer.

What to do about it: an outdated look does not mean you have to start over. Often a fresh design, better photos and up-to-date texts already make up a lot on the same foundation. If the ageing sits in the technology underneath, that is a different story. How to tell those apart, you can read in modernising your WordPress website.

Sign 3: your site does not work well on mobile

More than half of your visitors come via a phone. For local service providers that share is often higher still, because people look for a plumber, a hairdresser or an adviser nearby precisely while they are out.

Yet many websites are still designed on a large screen. On a phone it then turns out that the text is too small, that buttons sit too close together or that the menu half disappears.

How to recognise it: pick up your phone and try to call your own number or fill in your contact form in three taps. If you cannot manage it, neither can your customer.

What to do about it: a website that moves with the screen, with buttons big enough for a thumb and a menu that works at every size. That is no longer a luxury, not for Google either, which judges your site on the mobile version. What is involved, you can read in having a responsive website built.

Sign 4: visitors do not know what to do

This is the sign business owners mention least often themselves, and it is very often the cause. Your website neatly explains who you are and what you do, but nowhere does it say what the visitor should do now. In jargon such a clear next step is called a call to action.

Someone who is convinced wants to move on in one action. Call, request a quote, book an appointment. If they first have to hunt for a contact page, part of them drops off.

How to recognise it: open any page and ask yourself what the next step is here, and whether you see it without searching. Ask someone who does not know your business as well.

What to do about it: state on every important page, in plain language, what the visitor can do. "Request free advice" works better than "more information". Keep forms short, because every extra field costs you enquiries. How to get more out of the same visitors is set out in let your website grow with you.

Sign 5: your website is hard to find in Google

The first four signs are about visitors you already have. This one is about the visitors you never get.

Many business owners think they are visible enough, because they come out on top when they type in their own company name. That proves nothing. The question is whether people find you who do not yet know your name and search for what you do and where you are.

How to recognise it: in a private window, type your service plus your town, for example "electrician Groningen", and see where you stand. Also switch on Google Search Console, which is free, and look at which searches already give you impressions.

What to do about it: clear page titles, headings that answer the search question, texts that address what people actually type, and a completed Google Business Profile. You do not need a new website for that. What you can tackle on your current site, you can read in SEO for existing websites.

How to see in half an hour which sign applies to you

You do not have to guess. With three free tools you know within half an hour where you stand.

• Google PageSpeed Insights gives your speed score for mobile and computer, plus the biggest bottlenecks.
• Google Search Console shows which searches give you impressions and clicks.
• A visitor counter such as Google Analytics shows how many people come and where they drop off.

Watch the pattern above all. Do visitors arrive but stay only briefly? Then the problem sits on the page itself: speed, mobile or the next step. Do hardly any visitors arrive? Then the problem sits with your visibility.

Write the outcomes down, even if they disappoint. Without a baseline you will not know in three months whether an improvement did anything.

Which sign should you tackle first?

If you recognise several signs, the temptation is to tackle everything at once. Do not. Afterwards you will not know what worked.

A workable order:

1. First what affects every visitor. Speed and mobile apply to everyone who arrives, including via advertising or your newsletter.
2. Then the next step. Clear buttons and short forms turn the same visitors into more enquiries, often arranged in a couple of hours.
3. Then visibility. SEO works, but only pays off after months. Do start on it in good time.
4. The look and feel last, unless it is so outdated that people are put off by it.

Take one thing at a time, measure after a month, and then move on.

What does it cost to solve this?

That depends on which sign you recognise and on the technical state of your website. Three guidelines:

• Small interventions such as reducing image sizes, updating texts and placing clear buttons are often a matter of hours.
• A targeted improvement round on speed, mobile or visibility is a defined project with a price agreed up front.
• A new website is the biggest step and only worth it once you are stuck on several signs at the same time.

You hear up front what something costs and what it delivers. For a realistic picture of the amounts that are usual in the Netherlands, see what does having a website built cost.

Optimise or start over?

The question is not which of the two is better, but when each one fits.

Optimising is usually enough if the technology is still current, the site already works reasonably on mobile, and the shortcomings are mainly in speed, texts or clear choices for the visitor.

Starting over is wiser if you are stuck on three or more of the five signs at once, the site runs on outdated technology, or every adjustment takes a disproportionate amount of effort.

If you keep repairing for a year while the result lags behind, you are more expensive off than if you had done it properly in one go. We will also simply tell you your website is good enough when it is. What a professionally built website does for your business, we explain there.

If you choose to optimise, then keep it up. A website nobody maintains slips back into the same five signs by itself. That is part of management and maintenance.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if my website is costing me customers?

Watch for high drop-off rates in your visitor statistics, few enquiries through your form and complaints about speed or ease of use. A second clue is a large gap between the number of visitors and the number of contact moments. Also walk through the five signs above.

What does it cost to improve my website?

That depends on what is going on. Small improvements such as lighter images, up-to-date texts and clear buttons are often arranged within hours. A targeted improvement round on speed, mobile or visibility is a defined project with a price agreed up front. For a completely new website we always provide a clear proposal.

Can my existing website be improved, or do I need to start from scratch?

That varies per situation. If the technology is still current and the site already works reasonably on mobile, optimising is usually enough. If you are stuck on several signs at once or the site runs on outdated technology, rebuilding delivers more in the longer term.

Which sign should I tackle first?

Start with what affects every visitor: speed and the mobile display. Then make the next step clear with good buttons and short forms, because that turns the same visitors into enquiries. Visibility comes after that, because that investment only pays off after months.

How quickly do I see a result when I improve something?

That differs per sign. Speed, mobile and clear buttons work immediately: the very next visitor notices, and in your statistics you see within a few weeks whether it helps. Visibility in Google needs more time, count on three to six months.

Can I solve this myself or do I need help?

You can do part of it yourself: reducing image sizes, updating texts, placing clear buttons and completing your Google Business Profile. For hosting, caching, the mobile layout and deeper technical maintenance, help is usually faster and cheaper than working it out yourself.

Ready for a website that does deliver customers?

Do you recognise one or more of these five signs? Then you now know where to look and in which order to tackle it. Often the first step is smaller than you think.

If you cannot work it out yourself, we will take a look with you, free of obligation. We measure where your website stands now, name the sign that costs you most, and say whether optimising is enough.

Request free advice or view examples of our work.

Want to read more about the influence of loading speed on visitors? Look at the research from Think with Google.