Why Isn't My Website Getting Any Calls?

Your website looks alright. You paid someone for it, or you built it yourself over a few evenings. And the phone still isn't ringing because of it.

I hear this constantly, and the frustrating part is that "my website doesn't work" covers two completely different problems that need completely different fixes. Sorting out which one you have takes about ten minutes, and it will save you spending money on the wrong thing.

Is it a visibility problem or a conversion problem?

Only two things can be going wrong.

Nobody is finding the site. People search for what you do, you aren't on the first page, and they ring someone who is. Your website could be the best in the country and it would make no difference.

People find it and don't ring. They land, look for about eight seconds, and go back to the results. The site is being seen and it isn't doing its job.

The fix for the first is getting found on Google. The fix for the second is the website itself. Spending on the wrong one is the most common waste of money I see.

To work out which you've got, set up Google Search Console. It's free and takes five minutes. If it shows barely any impressions, nobody's finding you. If it shows plenty of clicks and your phone still isn't ringing, the site is the problem.

Why don't people ring when they do find it?

Assuming they're landing and leaving, it's almost always one of these.

It takes too long to load. Test it on your phone on mobile data, standing outside, not on the office wifi. If you can count to three before anything useful appears, you've lost a good share of people before they saw anything at all.

Your number isn't obvious. It should be visible without scrolling and tappable in one go. Not in a footer. Not as an image. Not behind a contact form that asks for a message first.

It doesn't say which jobs you do. "Quality workmanship, fully qualified, no job too small" tells someone with a leaking hot water cylinder nothing. Name the jobs. Use the words a customer would use, not the words on your invoice.

It doesn't say where you work. People search with a place in mind. If your site never names your suburbs and towns, it never answers the question they actually asked.

There's nothing that says you're real. No photos of your own work, no reviews, no name, no face. Photos off your phone of jobs you've finished beat stock images every single time.

It asks for too much. A nine-field contact form is a wall. Name, number, and a line about the job is plenty.

What should I fix first?

In this order, because that's roughly the order of impact per hour spent:

1. Make the phone number visible and tappable on every page
2. Get the site loading in under three seconds on mobile data
3. Write out the jobs you actually want, in plain words
4. Name your service areas
5. Add your own job photos and get a few reviews up
6. Cut the contact form back to three fields

Those first two alone fix a surprising number of "my website doesn't work" complaints, and neither needs a rebuild.

When is it actually worth rebuilding?

I spent 15 years in plumbing before I did this, so I'm not keen on telling people to spend money they don't need to. A rebuild is the right call when the site is slow at its foundations rather than slow because of one big image, when you can't edit it yourself and nobody can find who built it, or when it was never structured to be found in the first place.

Otherwise you're often a few honest fixes away, and it's worth finding that out before you commit to a new website.