Is Your Website Bringing In Calls, or Is It a Very Expensive Business Card?
Nine reasons local websites stay quiet, and what to fix first.
Every business owner we talk to has the same website story. Somebody built it a few years ago, it looked great at the launch party, and then it went quiet. The phone rings, sure. Just not because of the website.
A website that doesn't bring in calls is a business card with a hosting bill. A very nice one. Maybe even with a parallax scrolling effect. But a business card.
Here's how to tell which one you have, and what to fix first.
First, find out if it's working at all
Most owners can't answer a simple question: how many calls and form fills came from the website last month? Not "I think it's doing fine." An actual number.
If you can't answer it, start there. Track calls from the site with a tracking number, track form submissions as conversions in Google Analytics, and look at the numbers once a month. Everything below is easier when you can see what changed.
1. Nobody can find it
The prettiest site in Pittsburgh does nothing if it lives on page three of Google. If people can't find you when they search for what you do and where you do it, nothing else on this list matters yet. Check your Google Business Profile, give each service its own page, and say where you work in plain words. (We wrote a whole local search checklist on this.)
2. It's about you, not about them
"Founded in 1998. Committed to excellence. Passionate about quality." Great. What do you do, for whom, and why should I call you instead of the next result? The top of your homepage should answer that in one sentence a stranger understands in five seconds.
3. The phone number is playing hide and seek
If someone has to scroll to the footer to find your number, some of them won't. Put it at the top of every page and make it tappable on a phone. Same for the button that books, quotes or schedules. One clear next step, everywhere.
4. It's slow on a phone
Most local searches happen on phones, often in a parking lot, usually with one thumb and very little patience. Giant images and a pile of plugins make the page crawl. Open your site on your own phone, on cellular, and count. If you get bored, so do they.
5. Every service is crammed onto one page
One "Services" page listing 14 things ranks for none of them and convinces nobody. A page for each main service, written for the person who needs that service, gives you a shot at showing up and a better shot at getting the call.
6. There's no proof
People believe other customers more than they believe you. Real reviews, real names, real photos of real work. Put them next to the button, not on a lonely testimonials page nobody clicks.
7. The forms ask for everything except a blood sample
Name, phone, email, and what you need. That's it. Every extra field is one more reason to close the tab. And test the form yourself: a surprising number of contact forms send their messages to an inbox nobody has checked since 2021.
8. Nobody answers
The website did its job, the call came in, and it went to a voicemail box that's full. Or the form sat for three days. Speed wins local jobs. Whoever calls back first usually gets the work.
9. Nothing changes, ever
A site that hasn't been touched in years tells Google and customers the same thing: nobody's home. New service pages, updated photos, a fresh blog post now and then and current holiday hours all show you're open for business.
Business card or lead machine?
If you read this and counted more than two problems, your website is probably a business card right now. The good news: most of these fixes are small, and you don't need a whole new site to start getting more calls.
Not sure where yours stands? Our free SEO and social media audit checks how you show up on Google, how your site and profiles hold up when someone checks you out, and what the competitors beating you are doing differently. You get a short list of fixes, in the order that brings in calls.
And if the site really does need a rebuild, we do websites and landing pages in Pittsburgh and Houston that are built to ring the phone, not just to look good at the launch party.
