Why Does My Website Get Visits but No Enquiries?

In short: they came to buy something from you, quickly, and couldn't. Every question they had was a way of asking whether they could buy what they wanted from you, and when your website couldn't answer, they took their money somewhere that could.

The one question they want answering is

Can they buy what they want from you?

Nobody lands on a trade website to admire it. They've got a leak, a damp patch, a boiler that won't fire up or a job they've been putting off, and they're ready to pay someone to sort it.

All other questions

• Do you cover my area?
• Can you sort a leaking flat roof, or is that someone else's job?
• Is it going to cost a fortune?
• Could someone come out this week?

They're only there to find out if they can buy what they want from you.

What they get instead

Instead of answers, they get work to do, just to earn the chance to spend money with you. Most trade websites give them three choices:

1. Ring you. You're on a job, so it rings out.
2. Fill in a form. Then wait, without knowing if you even do that kind of work.
3. Leave. Go back to Google and try the next website.

The third one takes the least effort, and it's the one you never hear about. Where did they walk to?

How waiting loses them

With online enquiries, speed matters. Research in the US, led by Dr James Oldroyd of MIT, found that replying within five minutes made an enquiry around 21 times more likely to turn into a real conversation than waiting half an hour. And customers here notice when nobody gets back to them: in UK research for HomeServe, 41% of adults said a tradesperson had ghosted them, and 38% never heard back after asking for a quote, even after chasing (HomeServe). The longer someone waits, the more likely they've booked someone else. Stop making your customers work hard to give you money.

Five things worth checking on your website today

Whatever else you do, these are quick to check and they all help:

1. On a phone, can they reach you in one tap? Plenty of people will find you on their phone. If the only way in is ringing a number you can't answer from a roof, give them another way.
2. Does it say where you work? List the towns and areas you cover. It's the first thing people want to know.
3. Does it say what you do? The jobs you do, in the words customers use. "Flat roofs and guttering" beats "roofing solutions".
4. Are the photos yours, and recent? Real jobs you've done recently beat stock photos every time.
5. Does it say what happens next? "We'll ring you back the same day" or "we'll come and look at it this week" tells people what they're signing up for.

Answering them there and then

The biggest change is letting visitors ask their questions and get answers while they're still on your site, at any hour. That's what a Talking Website does: they tap one button, talk, get straight answers about your business, and once their questions are answered, your agent books them into your diary.

A normal website lets customers walk. A talking website lets customers talk.

There's more on why a form is a fence, or talk to Ollie on our homepage and hear exactly what your customers would.

This post is part of Shop Window: AI for trades, in practice.