Why isn’t my website generating leads?

Why this comes first: Many forms send each inquiry as an email. For mail to personal Gmail accounts, Google requires every sender to use SPF or DKIM, two methods that let a domain prove a message really came from it. Messages that aren’t authenticated this way might be marked as spam or rejected, according to Google’s email sender guidelines (external site). Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) also names both methods in its Technical Guideline on email authentication (external site). Forms that use the visitor’s email address as the sender are especially vulnerable. The email then comes from your server but names someone else’s domain. According to the setup guide from Contact Form 7 (external site), a form plugin for WordPress, mail providers find it hard to tell such messages from spam.

How to do it:

1. Fill out the form on a smartphone, from a private address outside your company, with a message like “Test inquiry from today.”
2. Look for the message in the intended inbox and in the spam folder. Find out who reads that inbox every day.
3. Reply to the test inquiry. Your reply must reach the private address.
4. Call the phone number on your website from someone else’s phone, and write to the email address listed there.
5. If the test inquiry is missing or in spam, have SPF, DKIM and the form’s sender address checked. The sender should be an address on your domain, and the visitor’s address belongs in the Reply-To field. Our how-to on contact forms without tracking shows how to build this.

Example: Suppose an electrical contractor forwards form submissions to the inbox of an employee who left the company long ago. The website shows every visitor “Thank you,” and for months nobody notices.

Common mistake: You treat the thank-you message as proof. It only shows that the form was submitted. Only the inbox shows whether the email arrived.

Done when the test inquiry is in the right inbox, your reply was delivered, and your phone and email both work. Repeat the test after every change to your website, hosting or email.

Stage 1 of 5: Being found. New customers don’t know your name yet. They search for your service, often with a location. The Performance report in Search Console (external site) shows which searches your website appeared for (impressions) and how often someone clicked (clicks). A filter for branded and non-branded queries (external site) separates the two groups. It isn’t available for sites with few impressions, and Google notes that some queries might be classified incorrectly. In that case, read the list yourself. Our guide to technical SEO explains how pages get into search in the first place.

How to do it:

1. Search for site:example.com, using your own domain, to check whether your website is in Google’s index. If it’s missing, our how-to Why isn’t my website showing up on Google? helps you find the cause before you continue here.
2. In Search Console, open the Performance report, select three months and look at the queries.
3. Count how many contain your name and how many name your service, with or without a location. Note their positions.
4. Check the performance data in your Google Business Profile (external site) to see how often people used the call button or the website link. This data is only available for verified profiles.
5. Ask an AI assistant such as ChatGPT three questions your customers would ask, and note who gets named. Our how-to on measuring AI visibility shows how to measure this reliably.

Example: Suppose the report shows 40 queries over three months. Of these, 34 contain the company name, and the other six are at position 40 or worse. Stage 1 is the bottleneck.

Common mistake: You search for your service on Google and see your own site at the top. According to Google’s help, search results are specific to the time, place, device and recent history of the person searching. So your own search proves nothing.

Done when you know which finding in the table applies to your website.

Stage 2 of 5: Clarity. According to Nielsen Norman Group, people often leave web pages in 10 to 20 seconds (external site). The analysis dates from 2011 and draws on data from Microsoft Research. In our view, the lesson still holds: a page has to make its value clear right away. Back in 2002, the same organization advised starting the home page with one sentence (external site) that says what the company does. Google recommends using the words people search with (external site) and placing them in prominent locations.

How to do it:

1. Write one sentence following the pattern “We [service] for [customers] in [place].” It goes at the top of your home page. Each service page gets its own version.
2. Show the page to three people outside the company for 10 seconds on a smartphone. Then ask: What does this business offer, for whom and where, and what would you do next?
3. Check that each service has its own page stating its scope, process and rough price.
4. Open the page on a mobile connection. If it’s noticeably slow, that’s a separate bottleneck. Our article on Core Web Vitals explains which values count.

Example: Suppose the top of the page says “Quality and reliability since 1995.” After 10 seconds, nobody knows whether the business remodels bathrooms or installs windows. “Bathroom remodeling for homeowners in Essen and Bottrop” is clearer.

Common mistake: Your own team tests the page. People who know the business fill in knowledge that isn’t on the page.

Done when all three test participants correctly name your service, customers and location.

Stage 3 of 5: Trust. The Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility (external site), from 2002, are based on research with over 4,500 people. They name a physical address as the easiest way to show that a real organization stands behind a website. Nielsen Norman Group counts upfront disclosure of contact details and costs (external site) among the marks of a trustworthy website. In Germany, the Verbraucherzentrale consumer advice centers tell consumers to check an online store’s legal notice (Impressum) and to look up the address in a map service (external site) (in German). That’s how people learn to vet providers online. Google’s guide to helpful content (external site) also asks whether it’s self-evident to visitors who created the content.

Positive reviews and helpful replies can help a business stand out, according to Google on local results (external site).

Example: Suppose a consulting firm shows only a handshake photo and the line “Our clients trust us.” Two real projects with task and result help more, because prospects can judge them for themselves.

Common mistake: Promotional claims go unsupported. The Stanford guidelines advise making claims verifiable.

Done when a name, an address, a work sample and a price range or process are visible, and the name and address match everywhere.

Stage 4 of 5: Contact path. Nielsen Norman Group recommends short forms (external site): fields for information that can be collected more conveniently later should go. It cites a study by Seckler and colleagues. Forms that followed usability guidelines were submitted without errors on the first try 78% of the time, compared with 42% for forms that violated them. The UK government’s Service Manual advises knowing why you’re asking every question (external site) before you start. The W3C forms tutorial (external site) describes how to make forms usable for everyone.

How to do it:

1. Write down why you need each field. If you only need the information during the conversation, delete the field.
2. Fill out the form on a smartphone and trigger an error on purpose. The message must name the field and say what to do.
3. Check whether a CAPTCHA, a banner or a pop-up covers or blocks the submit button.
4. Put the same next step on every service page, with your phone number or email address next to it. Make the phone number tappable on smartphones.
5. After submission, say what happens next and when.

Example: Suppose the form requires a postal address, a budget and a preferred date. For a first inquiry, the reason for getting in touch and one way to reach the person are often enough. The rest can wait for the conversation.

Common mistake: The form sits on a single page called “Contact,” and nothing on your service pages leads there.

Done when someone who doesn’t know your business submits an inquiry on a smartphone without help, and your phone number or email address is directly visible.

Stage 5 of 5: Measurement. On its own, website analytics doesn’t capture phone calls or emails. Without a log, you can’t tell whether your website is quiet or only your analytics are. So ask everyone who contacts you how they found you. You don’t need names or message text in the log.

When does a rate mean anything? The inquiry rate is the number of inquiries divided by the visits to your service pages. With few visits, it says very little. The table shows the range in which the true rate lies with 95% confidence, calculated with the Wilson method in the handbook of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (external site).

So zero inquiries from 100 visits are compatible with a rate of up to 3.7%. The range only becomes usefully narrow with several hundred visits and a few inquiries. If the ranges for two periods don’t overlap, the difference is solid. If they overlap, this comparison isn’t enough to show a difference. With few visits, base your decision on stages 1 to 4, test participants and test inquiries. For your own numbers, format the cells with the formulas below as percentages.

Lower limit: =(A2/B2+1.96^2/(2*B2)-1.96*SQRT(A2/B2*(1-A2/B2)/B2+1.96^2/(4*B2^2)))/(1+1.96^2/B2)
Upper limit: =(A2/B2+1.96^2/(2*B2)+1.96*SQRT(A2/B2*(1-A2/B2)/B2+1.96^2/(4*B2^2)))/(1+1.96^2/B2)

How to do it:

1. Create a log with the columns date, channel, service, source and outcome.
2. On the phone and in the form, ask: “How did you hear about us?” Record the answer.
3. Count the visits to your service pages. Clicks from Search Console are a lower bound, because they only cover Google. Your server logs are more complete, as our how-to on tracking AI traffic shows.
4. After four weeks, if the log and the visits are both small, the bottleneck is probably stage 1. If there are visits but no inquiries, check stages 2 to 4.

Example: Suppose that after four weeks the log has 12 entries, three through the form and nine by phone, and seven of the callers name the website as their source. So the website does generate inquiries. Most of them just arrive by phone.

Common mistake: You use a benchmark from the web as your yardstick. Agencies and tool vendors publish figures, often without saying where they come from. As of November 9, 2026, we haven’t found an independent survey for small businesses. So compare your own months with each other.

Done when four full weeks are in the log and you know the visits to your service pages.

If all five stages pass and it stays quiet, the cause probably lies outside the website. Then the demand, the price or the target market doesn’t fit, or your work mainly comes from referrals. A new website won’t solve that.

If a rebuild is on the table, our cost guide for websites in Germany shows the price ranges the market quotes there, and our website migration checklist shows how to keep your existing rankings. What goes into the websites we build is on our service page.

Common mistake: The website gets rebuilt because it looks old, and nobody has checked the stages. Afterward, the test inquiry lands in spam just as before.

Done when you’ve decided, for every stage that failed, whether to repair or rebuild.