Five signs your website is losing you customers
A website doesn't tell you when it fails. People just land on it, can't find what they need and go somewhere else. You can check these five signs from your phone in ten minutes.
Maybe your website was built years ago and nobody has looked at it since. It exists, it has the business name on it, it is “on the internet.” But a website that doesn’t work well does something worse than not existing: it shows a customer a careless business at the exact moment they are deciding.
The good news is you don’t need to know anything about technology to spot the problem. Grab your phone and run these five checks.
1. It looks wrong on a phone
People looking for a local business often do it on their phone, while they are out or sitting in the car.
The check: open your site on your phone. Do you have to pinch to zoom to read it? Does text run off the edge of the screen? Are the buttons so small you keep tapping the wrong one?
If any of that happens, the customer won’t work to figure it out. They hit back and tap the next result on Google, which is usually your competitor.
What should happen: text reads without zooming, everything fits the width of the screen and the button to call or message is easy to hit with a thumb.
2. It takes too long to load
Every second of waiting is people leaving. Not because they are impatient, but because the next option is one tap away.
The check: turn off Wi-Fi, use your cellular data and open your site. Count how long it takes before something useful appears. If you stare at a blank or half-built screen for several seconds, you have a problem.
The usual causes are oversized photos, templates stuffed with features nobody uses and low-quality hosting that answers slowly.
What should happen: within a second or two you see the business name, what you do and how to reach you.
3. The information is out of date
Nothing turns people away faster than calling a number that no longer works, or showing up to find the hours have changed. And it is easy to miss: winter hours that were never updated, a service you stopped offering, your old address, a photo of a product you no longer carry.
The check: read your site as if you were a new customer. Check the phone number, address, hours, services and the year at the bottom of the page. If the footer shows an old year, customers assume the business is abandoned.
What should happen: everything on the page is true today, and it matches your Google listing and your social accounts.
4. It isn’t obvious how to reach you
Someone landed on your site, liked what they saw and wants to ask a question. If they have to hunt for your phone number right then, you lost them.
The check: open your site on your phone and, without scrolling, look for a way to contact you. Tap the phone number: does it start a call? Tap the text or WhatsApp button, if you have one: does it open the chat? Send yourself a message through the contact form: did it arrive?
A contact form can quietly stop working and nobody notices, because messages that never arrive don’t send an alert.
What should happen: a clear button to call or message, visible without searching, that works on the first try. And a form you have tested this month.
5. The browser calls it “not secure,” or Google can’t find it
The check, part one: look at the address bar when your site opens. If it says “Not secure” next to your address, or there is no padlock, the browser is telling your customer not to trust you. That warning alone is enough for someone to leave.
The check, part two: search Google for your business name and your town. If your site isn’t among the first results, something is wrong. Google may not be reading it properly, the page title may not say who you are, or other sites may be using your name better than you are.
What should happen: the padlock, every time, and your site first when someone searches your name.
If you found two or more
Any one of these signs is already costing you customers. If you found two or more, your site is probably working against you instead of for you.
You don’t always have to start over. Sometimes fixing the phone layout, updating the information and putting a clear contact button in plain sight is enough. Other times the foundation is so old that rebuilding is smarter, because every patch costs more than starting right.
What doesn’t make sense is leaving it as it is. Your website works every day, around the clock, with every person who looks you up. It should be working for you.
A checklist to keep
Every three months, from your phone:
- Does it read well without zooming?
- Does it load fast on cellular data?
- Are the phone number, address and hours current?
- Is the contact button in sight, and does it work?
- Does it show the padlock, and come up first when you search your name?