If you are thinking “my website isn’t making money”, you are probably right. You are also probably guessing at the reason. Most business owners do. They decide it needs a redesign, or more traffic, or an SEO company, and they spend money on the wrong thing.
After 17 years of building and fixing websites, I can tell you that a website that makes no money nearly always has one of a handful of problems. Nobody can find it. The wrong people find it. The right people find it and leave. They try to get in touch and something stops them. Or they do get in touch and the enquiry goes nowhere.
Each one has a different fix. This post walks you through them in order, so you can find yours before you spend anything.
First, decide what “making money” means
A website does not make money on its own. It produces the things that lead to money: enquiries, phone calls, bookings and orders. So the first job is to decide which of those your site is meant to produce, and how many a month would count as a success.
If you cannot say how many enquiries your website produced last month, that is the first problem. Make sure form submissions and clicks on your phone number are tracked in your analytics, and ask every new customer how they found you. Write the answers down. Within a couple of months you will have a clear picture.
Problem 1: Nobody can find you
This is the one behind most of the “why aren’t customers finding us on Google” questions I hear, and it is the easiest to check.
Open a private browser window and search for your main service plus your town, the way a customer would. Try a few variations. If you are an electrician in Gloucestershire, search that. If you are a web designer in Cheltenham, search that. Note where you appear, if you appear at all.
Then open Search Console, which is free and shows you how often your site appears in Google and for which searches. If your site is barely appearing, you have a visibility problem, and no amount of design work will fix it.
The usual causes are simple. There is one general services page instead of a page for each service. Your town is never mentioned in the headings or page titles. Your Google Business Profile is unclaimed or half finished. You have few or no reviews.
The fix is to give each service its own page, name the places you cover, complete your Google Business Profile and collect reviews steadily. I will be straight with you: this takes months, not days. Anyone promising page one next week is not being honest with you.
Read more on why local customers can’t find your business on Google.
Problem 2: The Wrong People Are Finding You
Sometimes the site is visible, just not to anyone who will pay you. Look at the searches in Search Console that bring people to your site. Are they people looking to buy what you sell? Or are they searching for your business name, for free advice, or for something only loosely connected to your work?
If most of your visitors already know your name, your site is not winning you new customers. It is only confirming the ones you already have. And if your best-performing pages are blog posts answering questions from people who will never hire you, those visitors will never become enquiries.
The fix is to build pages aimed at people who are ready to buy. Service pages, location pages, and blog posts that answer the questions a buyer asks just before they get in touch. Then link each post to the relevant service page so a reader always has a next step.
Problem 3: People Arrive and Leave
This is the most common problem I find when a site has decent traffic and still no results. The visitors are there. They simply do not stay.
Do this now. Load your homepage on your phone, using mobile data rather than your office Wi-Fi. Read it as a stranger. Within a few seconds, can you tell what the business does, who it is for, where it works and what to do next? Is your phone number visible without scrolling or digging through a menu? Is there any proof, such as real reviews, real photos or named customers?
Speed matters too. If the page crawls on mobile data, many visitors will be gone before they read a word.
Then look at your most visited pages in your analytics. Where do people land, and where do they leave? Start with the page that gets the most visitors and does the least. Fixing that one page beats improving ten others.
The usual culprits are vague headlines, a slow site, no clear next step and nothing that tells a visitor they can trust you. All of these can be fixed without a rebuild.
See 7 things every small business homepage needs to include.
Problem 4: People Try to Get in Touch and It Fails
This one stings, because it means you are losing customers who were ready to speak to you.
Fill in your own contact form, from your phone, as a customer would. Does the message actually arrive? Check your spam folder too. Does the visitor see a confirmation afterwards? Is the form asking for far more information than someone will give a business they have not spoken to yet? Tap your phone number on mobile. Does it start a call?
Forms that send to an old email address, or land in spam, are more common than you would think. Owners often go months without noticing, because a form that silently fails looks exactly like a quiet month.
Keep the form short. Name, contact details and a box for their message is enough for most businesses.
Problem 5: Enquiries Come In and Nothing Happens
Sometimes the website is doing its job and the money is lost afterwards. If you are getting enquiries but few customers, the website is not the problem, and a redesign will not help.
Look at how quickly you reply. Look at whether you follow up when someone goes quiet. Look at whether your quotes are clear and whether your prices suit the people finding you. I would rather tell you this than sell you a new site you do not need.
Try how to get more enquiries from your existing website without spending a penny.
How to Tell Which Problem You Have
Match what you see to the right fix:
- Few appearances in Search Console: you have a visibility problem (Problem 1).
- Plenty of appearances, but for the wrong searches: you are attracting the wrong people (Problem 2).
- Decent visits, few enquiries: your pages are losing people (Problem 3).
- Enquiries attempted but not received: your contact process is broken (Problem 4).
- Enquiries received but no customers: the issue sits after the website (Problem 5).
Many sites have more than one. Fix them in this order, because there is no point polishing a page nobody visits, and no point driving traffic to a form that does not work.
When the Website Itself Is the Problem
Sometimes it is the site. It might be so old that it cannot be updated, so slow that people give up, or built on a template that cannot be changed to add the pages you need. In that case, a rebuild is the right answer.
But diagnose first. A new website with the same vague copy, the same missing service pages and the same broken form will make exactly the same amount of money as the old one, just with nicer colours.
What to Do This Week
You do not need a budget for any of this. Spend an hour on it.
- Search for your main service plus your town in a private window and note where you appear.
- Open Search Console and look at the searches that bring people to your site.
- Read your homepage on your phone as a stranger.
- Send yourself a test enquiry through your contact form.
- Check how quickly you replied to your last five enquiries.
Write down what you find. The problem is usually obvious by the end of it, and you will know where to spend money instead of guessing.
Need Help With a Website That Isn’t Making Money?
If you have worked through this and still cannot see why your website isn’t making money, I can look at it for you. I will check your search visibility, your key pages and your enquiry process, then tell you straight what is wrong and what to fix first. Get in touch at [CONTACT DETAILS].
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Is My Website Getting Visitors but No Enquiries?
Usually the page is not telling visitors what you do, who it is for or what to do next, or the contact process is difficult or broken. Load your site on your phone, read it as a stranger and submit a test enquiry through your own form. Most of the time the problem shows up within minutes of doing that.
Why Aren’t Customers Finding Us on Google?
Most often the site has no dedicated page for each service, does not mention the places you cover, or has an incomplete Google Business Profile. Search Console will show you how often your site appears. If it barely appears, the fix is better service and location pages plus steady reviews, built up over time.
How Long Does It Take for a Website to Start Making Money?
It depends on the problem. Fixing a broken form or a vague homepage can improve results within weeks. Getting found in search for new terms takes months, and I would be wary of anyone who promises otherwise. A brand new site with no history takes longest to start appearing.
How Do I Know if My Website or My Business Is the Problem?
Look at where the enquiries stop. If few people visit or enquire, the website is the likely cause. If enquiries arrive but turn into few customers, look at how quickly you reply, how you follow up and how you quote. A website can only bring people to the door.
Should I Rebuild My Website if It Isn’t Making Money?
Not until you know why. A rebuild fixes a site that is slow, outdated or impossible to edit. It will not fix missing service pages, vague copy or a broken enquiry process unless those are tackled as part of it. Diagnose first, then decide.
Leave A Comment