How to tell if your website is leaking leads

A website can look great and still lose work every week. The leaks are rarely dramatic: a form that errors on some phones, a reply that takes two days, a booking page that asks one question too many. None of them show up in a design review.

Here's a self-audit you can run in about 30 minutes. You only need your phone, a second email address and a notepad.

1. Load it on your phone, on mobile data

Turn off Wi-Fi and open your site on your phone. Count, roughly, how long until you can read the main headline and see a way to contact you.

Look for:

• A slow first screen. If you're waiting, so are your visitors. Some of them leave.
• Things jumping around as images and banners load, making you tap the wrong button.
• Text you have to zoom to read, or buttons too small to tap comfortably.

For a more objective check, run your homepage through Google's free PageSpeed Insights and look at the mobile results.

2. Can a stranger tell what you do in five seconds?

Show the homepage to someone who doesn't know your business for five seconds, then ask: what do they do, where, and how do I get in touch?

If they can't answer all three, your headline is doing too little work. "Welcome to our website" and a stock photo is a leak.

3. Count the steps to contact you

From the homepage, how many taps does it take to:

• Call you?
• Send an enquiry?
• Book a time?

Every extra page and every form field is a chance to drop off. Ask only what you need to reply well; everything else can wait for the conversation.

4. Submit your own form and time the reply

This is the most important test. Use an email address you don't normally use and fill in your own contact form as a customer would.

Then check:

1. Did the form actually send? Try it on your phone too. Broken forms are more common than anyone admits, especially after a plugin update.
2. Did the customer get an acknowledgement? A visitor who hears nothing often enquires with the next business on the list.
3. Where did the enquiry land? A shared inbox nobody owns? Your spam folder?
4. How long until a person replied? Write down the time. Then ask what it would be on your busiest day.

5. Check what happens out of hours

Repeat the test at 8pm on a weekday or on a Sunday. Many enquiries come in when you're closed. Does the visitor get anything useful (a confirmation, a booking link, a time to expect a reply) or silence until Monday?

6. Follow the enquiry to the end

Pick five enquiries from last month and trace each one:

If you can't fill in the table without digging through several apps and your memory, that's a leak in itself: you can't fix what you can't see.

7. Check your local search basics

• Your business name, address and phone number are identical on your site and your Google Business Profile.
• Each main service has its own page, not one long list.
• Your site tells search engines what you are, through structured data for your business type.
• Recent reviews exist and someone is replying to them.

What to fix first

Prioritise by where the money is:

1. A broken or unreliable form. Fix it today.
2. No instant acknowledgement. Set one up this week.
3. Slow first reply. Get enquiries to your phone, not a shared inbox.
4. No follow-up on quotes. See the 5 follow-ups that recover lost revenue.
5. Speed, clarity and local SEO. Important, but they bring more enquiries; plug the leaks first so those enquiries don't drain away too.

The goal isn't a prettier site. It's that every enquiry gets an instant, useful response and ends up somewhere it can't be forgotten.

Next steps

• Custom websites & SEO
• Instant replies and follow-ups
• Ask us to review your site