Your website does not need to be the most impressive site in your industry.
It does need to make potential customers feel confident about contacting you.
Most visitors are trying to answer a few simple questions:
Does this business provide what I need?
Does it work with companies like mine?
Does it cover my location?
Does it appear trustworthy?
How do I make contact?
If those answers are difficult to find, the visitor may leave and speak to a competitor.
Visitors cannot quickly understand what you do
Your homepage should clearly explain what you provide, who you help and where you operate.
Businesses often rely on vague phrases such as “innovative solutions” or “delivering excellence”.
These statements may sound professional, but they do not help a visitor understand the service.
Clear language is normally more persuasive than clever language.
Your services are difficult to find
Putting every service onto one long page makes it harder for visitors to find the information they need.
Your main services should have their own useful pages.
Each page should explain the problem being solved, what is included, who the service is suitable for and what the visitor should do next.
Dedicated service pages also give you somewhere relevant to direct people from blog posts, social media and advertising.
Your local coverage is unclear
A local customer may leave if they cannot tell whether you serve their area.
Businesses targeting Kent and East Surrey should make that coverage clear through service-area statements, location pages and genuine local examples.
Place names should be used naturally.
Creating dozens of nearly identical pages with only the town name changed is unlikely to provide much value to visitors.
A smaller number of useful, detailed pages will usually feel more trustworthy.
The website is frustrating on a phone
Many potential customers will first visit your website on a mobile phone.
Text should be comfortable to read, buttons should be easy to press and forms should fit the screen.
Telephone numbers should be clickable and important information should appear near the top of the page.
Do not just check whether the site technically loads on a phone. Use it as a customer would.
Pages are slow or unreliable
A slow or unreliable website can create doubt before the visitor has read anything.
Large images, outdated software and poorly configured hosting can all cause problems.
Visitors may leave when pages fail to load, buttons do nothing or contact forms produce errors.
These problems can continue unnoticed when nobody is responsible for monitoring the website.
Contacting you takes too much effort
Once somebody decides to contact you, the process should be simple.
Provide clear options such as a telephone number, contact form or consultation button.
Forms should only request the information you genuinely need at the first stage.
The wording of your call to action matters too.
“Request a consultation” is clearer and more reassuring than a generic “Submit” button.
Nobody knows whether the form works
Contact forms are often assumed to be working until someone discovers that enquiries have not been arriving.
Messages can fail because of spam filters, website updates, expired services or incorrect email settings.
Forms should be tested regularly from beginning to end.
Check that the visitor sees a confirmation and that the message reaches the correct person.
The content is out of date
Old information can make an active business appear neglected.
Review your website for former employees, old telephone numbers, outdated services, broken links and expired offers.
Your website does not need to change every week, but it should accurately reflect the business as it operates today.
Publishing useful articles also gives you an opportunity to answer customer questions and guide visitors towards relevant services.
Nobody owns security and maintenance
A website is a business system and should be managed like one.
It may contain customer enquiries, administrative accounts and connections to other services.
Someone should be responsible for software updates, backups, security, form testing and administrator access.
Do not assume the designer, hosting company or marketing agency is handling everything unless their responsibilities are clearly agreed.
Are you measuring enquiries?
Website traffic alone does not tell you whether the site is generating business.
You should understand which pages people visit, how they found you and whether they completed a form or made contact.
The aim is not to create complicated reports.
It is to identify what is working and make informed improvements rather than relying entirely on opinion.
Make the website useful, not just attractive
A good business website is never completely finished.
Services change, customer questions change and new projects provide better examples.
Small improvements can make a significant difference, whether that means rewriting the homepage, improving a service page or fixing a broken form.
Lingard IT Consultancy helps small businesses across Kent and East Surrey design, improve and manage their websites.
We combine website development, content, maintenance and technical support, giving you one point of contact for both the site and the technology behind it.
Concerned that your website may be losing potential customers? Book a free consultation with Lingard IT Consultancy for an honest review of what is working and what should be improved.
David Lingard
