Why isn’t my website getting enquiries? A diagnosis in 3 problems

A website gets no enquiries because of one of 3 problems: people who do not know you cannot find it, they find it but nobody takes the step, or the people who write are not a good fit. Each problem leaves a trace in a different place: Search Console, Google Analytics, your Google Business Profile and your inbox. Below you will find the map to work out which one is yours, a 19-point checklist and a 2-week test to see whether messages arrive.

When something is our interpretation of a rule, we mark it as a cautious approach. When it is one of our working methods, as our approach. The businesses in the examples are hypothetical.

Before the map: check that enquiries arrive

The first suspect is not the design, it is the inbox. A form can show “Message sent” and deliver nothing, or deliver it to the spam folder.

Do this 5-minute test today, from your phone and on mobile data:

1. Fill in your form with a personal email address and submit it. Note the time.
2. Look for the notification in the inbox that receives it, including the spam folder.
3. Press Reply. The reply should go to your personal email, not to the website’s address.
4. Tap the phone number on the website and the WhatsApp button. Check that they open the right number.

If something fails, that is your first problem, and none of the others matters until it is fixed. The full version, with a stopwatch and another person writing without warning, is the 2-week test at the end.

One possible cause of lost notifications is technical. Google requires anyone sending email to personal Gmail accounts to authenticate their domain with SPF or DKIM (sender guidelines). It also asks senders not to impersonate Gmail senders, and warns that doing so can affect delivery. That is what happens when a form sends the notification with a Gmail visitor’s email as the sender.

Our approach: the notification comes from an authenticated address on your domain, and the visitor’s email goes in “Reply-To”. Ask whoever manages your website to set it up this way.

The decision map: 3 questions, in this order

Answer these 3 questions with data from the last 3 months, the period Search Console shows by default (Help). Our approach: the first one you answer with a no is your main problem.

You can have 2 at once. Tackle the one higher up first: improving the form is no use if nobody arrives, and bringing in visits is no use if the form fails.

Analytics only sees people who accept cookies: use it to compare pages and channels, not to count people. How to set up the enquiries sheet and the key events is in how to measure your website’s enquiries. This diagnosis builds on that.

Problem 1: visits are not coming in from people who don’t know you

If hardly anyone reaches your website searching for what you do, you do not have a conversion problem. You have a visibility problem, and it is solved on Google, on your profile or with ads.

What to do depending on what you find:

• Pages out of the index after changing website. Follow the plan for a redesign without losing rankings, with its redirect map.
• On the map, people only find you by name. The guide to showing up on Google Maps has a diagnosis by symptom and a 30-day plan.
• A service page is missing. Write it with the practice area page template. It is designed for law firms, but the order of the blocks works for any service.
• You need visits now, without waiting to rank. Plan a test campaign with how much to invest in Google Ads.

Problem 2: visits come in, but nobody takes the step

If your service pages get visits and generate no key events, the obstacle is on the website. It could be the message, trust, speed or the form. These checks tell you where.

Example

Let’s say there is a physiotherapy clinic in Castellón. Its pelvic floor page gets visits from Google and has not had a single key event in 3 months. In the funnel exploration, of 120 sessions on that page, 30 go on to the contact page, 25 start the form and 2 submit it.

The obstacle is the form, not the page. When you open it, it asks for an ID number and date of birth, and ends with an image CAPTCHA. Points 16 and 18 of the checklist fix it.

If the obstacle is the page and not the form, start with points 1 to 8 of the checklist. And if you want a first technical analysis without going into Search Console, check your website for free: it reviews the home page, with its technical SEO, its mobile speed and whether it is easy to get in touch.

Problem 3: enquiries come in, but they are not a good fit

If people write to you about things you do not do, from areas where you do not work or with impossible budgets, your website attracts people you are not looking for. The solution is to say more clearly what you do and for whom, and to ask questions before you call.

Our approach: what pays off most here is a qualifying form: 5 or 6 closed questions, plus contact details, and an outcome for each answer. You will find a complete one, question by question, in the guide to law firm websites. The first field, “What do you need?”, separates what you do from what you do not before you call.

Example

Let’s say an employment advisory firm in Valencia receives 20 forms a month and only 6 are a good fit. The reason column says that 9 come from people looking for a job. In Search Console, the “Work with us” page gets clicks from searches such as “advisory firm jobs Valencia”.

The solution is not to hide that page. It is to give it its own channel for sending a CV and to add the option “I’m looking for a job” to the form, which leads to that page.

Checklist: 19 points for the service page and the form

Go through it phone in hand, on your main service page. Each point has its source where one exists, and the rest is our approach. The full accessibility review is in mandatory web accessibility, and the review of legal texts is in legal notice, privacy and cookies.

The service page

The form

4 points on the checklist come with small print

Speed (points 9 and 10). The thresholds are measured at the 75th percentile of page loads, separately on mobile and desktop (web.dev). In Search Console, each group of pages takes the status of its worst metric: if CLS is poor, so is the group (Help). Google’s ranking systems use these metrics, but a fast page does not replace one that answers well (page experience).

CAPTCHA (point 18). Criterion 3.3.8 applies to authentication, such as logging in to a client area, not to the contact form. For the form, the reference is the W3C note on CAPTCHA: CAPTCHAs exclude people who are blind, deaf or have cognitive difficulties. The W3C welcomes methods that ask nothing of the user, because they create no barriers, and advises considering hidden honeypot fields and spam filters.

Privacy (points 16 and 17). The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires data that is “adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary” (art. 5.1.c) and requires you to inform people at the time the data is collected (art. 13). The LOPDGDD allows this in 2 layers: the basics next to the form and the rest in the policy (art. 11). If your first contact does not need a piece of data, do not ask for it. Our approach: every extra field is a reason not to submit.

Example of basic information next to the submit button

Controller: [name or company name]. Purpose: to answer your enquiry and, if you ask, to send you a quote. Rights: access, rectification, erasure and the others explained in our [privacy policy].

If you are unsure about the “I accept the privacy policy” checkbox, the cautious approach is in legal notice, privacy and cookies.

Reviews (point 8). Since Law 10/2025 (Ley 10/2025), reviews must relate to services used in the 30 calendar days before the date of the review (art. 20.4). Cautious approach: ask for them within that period, with the messages in how to get Google reviews. And never write them yourself or commission them: it is a misleading practice (art. 27.8 of the Unfair Competition Law).

The 2-week test: send, wait and time it

The checklist reviews the website. This test reviews what happens after the click, which is where the enquiries nobody sees get lost. It is our approach and only needs a sheet, a clock and a person you trust.

Before you start, prepare a sheet with these columns:

Mark each submission as “TEST” in your enquiries sheet, so you do not count it as a client. If you filter your internal traffic by IP, only submissions from the office network are excluded: those made on mobile data do appear in Analytics.

Week 1: you test it yourself

1. Day 1. Form from your phone, on mobile data and with a Gmail address. Check the confirmation message, that the notification reaches the inbox and not spam, and that “Reply” goes to the person who wrote. Also check the autoreply, if you have one, and the event in the Analytics Realtime report, if you accepted cookies.
2. Day 2. Form from a computer, with an Outlook or Hotmail address and using only the keyboard. Submit it empty first and then with a mistyped email. Check points 12 to 15 of the checklist.
3. Day 3. Phone. Call the number on the website first thing in the morning, at midday and 10 minutes before closing. Note whether anyone answers and how long it takes. Also call outside opening hours: you should hear a message saying when calls are answered.
4. Day 4. WhatsApp. Write from the button on the website. Check that the pre-filled message appears and note how long they take to reply.
5. Day 5. Your Google Business Profile, from your phone. Press Call and Website. The phone number must be the one on the website, and the link must open a useful page.

Week 2: someone else writes, without saying when

Ask someone you trust to send 3 enquiries on different days and at different times. Beforehand, tell your team that test enquiries will arrive over the next few weeks, without saying when:

1. A Monday, first thing, through the form, with a case that fits.
2. A Wednesday afternoon, through WhatsApp, with a case that does not fit.
3. A Friday, after your closing time, through the form.

That person notes when they send and when they receive the first reply. An autoreply does not count. Cautious approach: measure the channel, not the person who responds. Do not write down names or use the result to assess anyone, and if you have staff, discuss it first with your employment adviser.

Day 14: your worst response time is the time frame you can publish

• Time until the notification. It should be a matter of minutes. If any notification did not arrive or went to spam, check the sender and authentication before anything else.
• Time until the first reply, in working hours. Compare it with the time frame you publish. If you do not publish one, you now know which one you can meet: the worst of your 3 cases.
• The enquiry that did not fit received a useful answer, not silence.
• The enquiry outside opening hours was told when you would reply.

Our approach: if clicks on Call on your profile go up and answered calls do not, the problem is not the website. It is who picks up the phone or the opening hours, as we explain in how to measure your website’s enquiries.

Repeat the test every 3 months and after every change of website, hosting, email or plugins. A notification can stop arriving without anyone noticing.

Mistakes that lose you enquiries without you noticing

1. Testing only from the office computer. On the work wifi and logged in, everything can seem to work. Clients arrive from their phones and on mobile data.
2. Counting enquiries without checking whether they fit. Without the “Good fit?” column, 20 enquiries that do not fit look like a good month.
3. Changing the design when the problem is visibility. If visits are not coming in from people who don’t know you, a new website will not fix it.
4. Promising a response time you do not measure. Publish it when the 2-week test says you meet it.

What to do on Monday

1. Do the 5-minute test from the beginning. If something fails, fix it before going any further.
2. Open Search Console and answer question 1 of the map with the queries that do not include your brand.
3. Open the Landing page report in Analytics and note the service pages with visits and no key events.
4. Add the “Good fit?” column to your enquiries sheet and, when an enquiry does not fit, the reason.
5. Go through the checklist on your main service page, phone in hand.
6. Put the 2-week test in the calendar and find the person who will write the test enquiries.

If you would rather do this with someone, a conversion project at NOR studio starts by checking the tracking and running this diagnosis, before touching the website. If your problem is that visits are not coming in, we will tell you before proposing changes.