You have a good business. People are happy, your calendar is reasonably full, word of mouth works. And yet something strange happens: your website brings in almost nothing. No calls, no enquiries, no emails. Visitors do come, they look around a bit and they disappear again. That is not bad luck, and it is rarely about your craft. It is about what is on the page and especially about what is not on it.
A website that brings in enquiries is not a pretty business card. It is a workbench. That is how we look at a new website for a local business too. Every line has a job: make clear what you do, for whom, where, and what the visitor should do now. Everything that does not fulfil that job can go. That sounds strict, but it is exactly why some local sites fill up and others stay empty.
Put a promise in the heading, not a slogan
The first line a visitor reads has to answer three questions: what do you do, for whom, and where. Not in vague terms, but concretely. “Plumber in Utrecht for emergencies and renovations” does more than “Craftsmanship with a smile”. For a hairdresser, “Cuts and colour in Haarlem, also on Saturdays” works better than “Your hair, our passion”. An accountant can be sharp with “Bookkeeping and tax returns for freelancers and small businesses in Friesland”.
Why this matters so much: a visitor from your area wants to know within a few seconds whether he is in the right place. If he doubts it, he goes back to the search results and clicks the next one. Your heading is not a place for creativity, it is a place for clarity. Put the promise at the top, big enough to read without squinting, and do not repeat it anywhere else in different words. One promise, done well once.
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A website that brings in enquiries is not a pretty business card, it is a workbench.
One primary action, reachable everywhere
Most local sites have too many buttons. Call, email, WhatsApp, a form, an appointment planner, a chat window and a link to socials. The visitor then does not know what to do and ends up doing nothing. Choose one primary action. For a plumber that is calling, because an emergency does not tolerate a form. For a hairdresser that is booking an appointment. For an accountant that is an enquiry or an introduction.
That one action has to be visible on every page, including when someone is halfway through reading your rates or your way of working. On a phone that means a button that stays put while you scroll. On a computer a clear button at the top and once more at the bottom of the page. Everything else you offer is secondary and smaller. That way nobody has to think.
Show real work, not mood photos
Visitors trust proof, not atmosphere. Stock photos of a smiling technician in a clean overall say nothing about your customers’ work. A photo of a real bathroom you fitted yourself, with a short explanation of what was wrong and how you solved it, says everything. For a hairdresser: photos of hairstyles you did yourself, with your client’s name if they are fine with that. For an accountant: a few lines about your client who avoided a tax assessment, without names and without amounts.
Reviews work the same way. Real reviews with a name and a concrete experience convince more than a row of stars without text. Ask your clients for a review after a job well done, and put the best one on your homepage. Not all of them, a handful is enough. Make sure they are readable and not hidden behind a link.
A short form that actually arrives
Many enquiries get lost in the form itself. Too many fields, a required phone number, a menu with ten options. Keep it short: name, how they can reach you, and one line about the job. Nothing more. And test it yourself. Fill in your own form, exactly as your client would, and check whether the email arrives. Not in your spam, not in a folder you never open, but simply in your inbox.
This is where things most often go wrong without you knowing. A form that does not arrive is worse than no form, because your client thinks you are ignoring him. Add what happens next too: “You will hear from us within a day.” That little sentence takes away doubt. If you want to know more about this, we explain on the page about managing your website via chat how you keep an eye on things like this yourself.
Fast on a phone, without fuss
Many local visitors come via their phone, often on the move or on a break. If your page loads slowly, they drop off before they see anything. Big photos, heavy sliders and pop-ups that jump into view straight away cost you visitors. Google has a clear explanation of this on web.dev: the speed and stability of the page count towards how visitors experience you.
Our starting point is simple: one clear heading, one primary button, a few real photos that are not too heavy, and a form that works. No slider with rotating images, no pop-up with a newsletter, no five different buttons. Everything that distracts goes out. That may feel bare, but the visitor knows straight away what to do. If you want to see what that looks like in practice for your kind of business, take a look at website for smes or website for freelancers.
What you are better off leaving out
Leave out sliders, because nobody clicks them and they make your page slow. Leave out pop-ups, because they irritate and push visitors away before they read anything. Leave out the row of socials at the bottom if it serves no purpose. Leave out hollow texts like “we stand for quality and reliability”, because they say nothing. And leave out the required newsletter sign-up, because a visitor who wants to call is not waiting for a mailing.
What is left is a page that does one thing well: get a visitor to call or send an enquiry. That is not a trick, it is making choices. And the good thing is: you can apply this to your current site too, without turning everything upside down. Start with your heading, then your button, then your form. Test it, and see what happens.
Want to know exactly where your site is losing enquiries right now? Then request the free diagnosis. You will see in plain language what your homepage does now and where you can change something first.
Written with AI by FWRD. Sources and figures are linked in the text.