Why Your Website Gets No Enquiries: Seven Causes and How to Check Each Yourself
“We have a site, traffic seems to be coming, but there are no enquiries” is the most common way the problem gets described. There is rarely one cause, and they almost always sit in a predictable order. Below are seven, from the most annoying to the most fundamental, plus a way to check each yourself.
Start by confirming enquiries arrive at all
Before redesigning anything, spend ten minutes. Fill in your own form from your phone, not your work computer. Then again in a different browser.
What to check: the email arrived, it did not land in spam, all fields are present, the reply-to address is correct, the form displayed a confirmation. One in three “no enquiries” cases closes at this step. Email breaks especially often after moving to new hosting.
Separately: enquiries should be stored somewhere besides email. An email can be deleted by accident; a database record cannot.
Seven causes in order of checking
| Cause | Symptom | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiries never arrive | Silence despite normal traffic | Submit the form yourself |
| The wrong traffic | Visitors exist but behave randomly | Review queries in Search Console |
| Unclear what you do | High bounce on the first screen | Five second test on an outsider |
| No price and no process | Long reading, no contact | Check whether any price guidance exists |
| No evidence | People open case studies and leave | Count case studies containing numbers |
| The form deters people | They start filling it in and abandon | Count required fields |
| Slow or awkward on mobile | Mobile conversion far below desktop | Open it on a phone off Wi-Fi |
The wrong traffic
A thousand visitors a month means nothing until you know which queries brought them. The typical picture: the site ranks for informational queries, people read an article and leave, because buying was never their intention.
The check: in Search Console look at the twenty queries with the most impressions. If none of them carry intent to buy or hire, the problem is not the site, it is that the wrong people are arriving on it.
Unclear what you do
This is free to check and takes a minute. Show the first screen to someone unconnected to your business for five seconds, then close it. Ask them to describe what the company is and who it is for.
If they cannot, the rest of the page does not matter. A headline like “Solutions for your business” never passes this test.
No price and no process
The two most frequently missing elements, and the two with the strongest effect on enquiries in service businesses.
The absence of any price indication pushes people to go and find someone who did name a figure. You do not have to publish a rate card: a range, a worked example or a line such as “projects in this category typically start from” is enough.
A description of the process removes fear of the unknown. Someone who cannot picture what happens after they submit the form postpones submitting it.
No evidence
A case study without numbers is a story. A case study with numbers is an argument. The difference between “we built a website for a company” and “we built a website and enquiries went from 12 to 34 a month within a quarter” is measured in enquiries.
The working minimum: three case studies from the client’s own industry, each with the problem, what was done and a result in measurable terms.
The form deters people
Every extra required field reduces submissions. The most common unnecessary ones: middle name, company name, job title, budget, “how did you hear about us”, and a separate marketing consent checkbox.
A working minimum: a name, one contact method of the visitor’s choosing, a short message. A person on a call will find out the rest, and will do it better than a form.
The check: count the required fields. More than four is a reason to cut.
Slow or awkward on mobile
Check the site from a phone on mobile data, not office Wi-Fi. Watch three things: whether the first screen loaded within three seconds, whether a banner covers the content, and whether your thumb hits the buttons without zooming.
Compare mobile and desktop conversion in analytics. A gap of more than double means the problem is technical rather than editorial.
The order of work
- Verify enquiry delivery. Ten minutes, and the cheapest possible finding.
- Look at the queries bringing people in. There is no point going further without this.
- Run the five second test.
- Count the required fields in your form.
- Open the site on a phone away from the office.
- Check whether the site has pricing, a process and case studies with numbers.
The first five points take an hour and close most cases. The redesign that usually gets proposed first sits last on this list for a reason: it is the most expensive option and the least often the actual cause.
