Why Am I Not Getting Leads from My Website

72% of contractor websites have no call-to-action above the fold. No phone number in the header. No “Get a Free Estimate” button. No form. Just a stock photo and a logo. And contractors wonder why the phone doesn’t ring.

Your website exists. You paid someone to build it. Maybe you even paid for SEO or ran some ads. But leads aren’t coming in, and you’re not sure if the problem is traffic, design, technical issues, or all three.

Most businesses spend $92 acquiring traffic for every $1 they spend on converting that traffic. Going from a 1% conversion rate to 3% delivers a 200% revenue increase, far easier and cheaper than trying to drive 200% more visitors. Before you spend another dollar on ads or SEO, make sure the website you’re sending traffic to can actually convert.

This is different from having traffic that doesn’t convert. If you’re getting visitors but no calls, that’s a conversion problem. If you’re getting leads but they’re garbage, that’s a lead quality problem. This article is for contractors whose websites feel completely invisible.

Check 1: Can anyone actually find your website?

Before blaming your design, verify that real people can find your site in the first place.

Open an incognito browser window and search for your primary service plus your city. “Plumber Dallas” or “HVAC repair Phoenix.” If you’re not on page one, you have a visibility problem, not a conversion problem.

75% of users never scroll past the first page of Google results. If you’re on page two or beyond, you might as well not exist. Your website could be perfectly designed with flawless calls-to-action, but none of that matters if nobody sees it.

Check Google Search Console. If you haven’t set it up, that’s your first red flag. Search Console shows you exactly how many times your site appeared in search results (impressions) and how many times someone clicked through. Zero impressions means Google either hasn’t indexed your pages or doesn’t consider them relevant.

Common indexing problems

38% of small business websites have at least one critical indexing error preventing pages from appearing in search results.

Check if your site is actually indexed by typing site:yourdomain.com into Google. If nothing shows up, Google doesn’t know your website exists. This happens more often than you’d think, especially with newer websites or sites that were recently redesigned.

A noindex tag accidentally left on your pages will block Google from showing your site in results. This is a common leftover from development when the web designer told Google to ignore the site while it was being built and forgot to remove the tag before launch.

A contractor on Reddit discovered his web designer had left the noindex tag on his entire site for 14 months after launch. He was paying $500/month for SEO during that period — $7,000 spent optimizing a site that Google was specifically instructed to ignore. He only discovered it when a marketing consultant ran a free site audit.

Broken XML sitemaps, missing robots.txt files, and orphaned pages with no internal links all contribute to poor indexing. These are technical issues that a non-technical contractor shouldn’t have to diagnose, but they’re killing your visibility. Our breakdown of common local SEO mistakes covers the technical errors that matter most.

Check 2: Is your Google Business Profile connected?

56% of local businesses haven’t claimed or properly linked their Google Business Profile to their website. For contractors, this is devastating.

Google Business Profile drives the Map Pack, those three local results with the map that show up for nearly every service search. 93% of local searches trigger a Map Pack. If your GBP isn’t claimed, verified, and linked to your website, you’re invisible in the most prominent section of local search results.

Even if your GBP is claimed, check that the website URL is correct. A surprising number of profiles link to an old domain, a Facebook page, or a dead URL. Every click on a wrong link is a lead you’ll never see.

Your GBP should list every service you offer, your complete service area, accurate business hours, and at least one photo uploaded in the last 90 days. Profiles with photos receive 42% more direction requests and 35% more click-throughs to websites than those without.

Check 3: How fast does your site load?

The average contractor website takes 8.6 seconds to fully load. Google’s recommendation is under 2.5 seconds for Largest Contentful Paint. The gap between average and ideal is enormous.

53% of mobile visitors leave a page that takes more than 3 seconds to load. If your site takes 8+ seconds, you’re losing more than half your visitors before they even see your content. They hit the back button and click on your competitor instead.

Run your homepage through Google PageSpeed Insights right now. You’ll get a score from 0-100 and specific recommendations for improvement. Most contractor websites score below 50 on mobile.

The biggest culprits are unoptimized images (a single 5MB hero photo can add 4-6 seconds to load time), too many plugins or scripts, cheap hosting with slow server response times, and render-blocking CSS or JavaScript.

One HVAC contractor on ContractorTalk traced 60% of his site’s load time to a single uncompressed hero image — a 4.8MB photo from a job site. After compressing all images and switching from shared hosting to a CDN-backed host, his PageSpeed score went from 28 to 87 and his bounce rate dropped from 71% to 43%.

Speed directly impacts both your search rankings and your conversion rate. We published a full analysis of how website speed affects lead conversion with benchmarks by industry.

Check 4: Does your site work on phones?

63% of home service searches happen on mobile devices. A homeowner with a leaking pipe isn’t sitting at a desktop computer. They’re on their phone, searching for help, and they need to reach you in seconds.

61% of contractor websites fail Google’s mobile usability test. Buttons too small to tap. Text too small to read. Content wider than the screen. Forms that are impossible to fill out on a phone.

Google’s mobile-first indexing means Google primarily uses the mobile version of your site for ranking and indexing. If your mobile experience is broken, your rankings suffer across all devices.

Test your site right now. Pull it up on your phone. Try to find your phone number and tap it to call. Try to fill out your contact form. Time how long it takes for the page to load. If any of those steps feel frustrating, your potential customers feel the same frustration and they leave.

A clickable phone number in the header is mandatory. On mobile, a tap-to-call button converts at 3-5x the rate of a contact form. Every contractor website without a clickable phone number visible on the first screen is leaving leads on the table.

A plumber posting on r/sweatystartup described losing an estimated $4,000-$5,000/month in leads because his website’s phone number wasn’t clickable on mobile. Visitors had to memorize the number, switch to their dialer app, and manually type it. He made the number tap-to-call and saw mobile conversions increase by 62% within 30 days.

Check 5: Is there a clear call-to-action above the fold?

“Above the fold” means the content visible on screen before scrolling. 72% of contractor websites have nothing actionable in this space — no phone number, no form, no button. Just a generic headline and an image.

A visitor to your website decides within 3-5 seconds whether to stay or leave. If they can’t immediately see what you do, where you do it, and how to contact you, they’re gone.

Your above-the-fold content needs three elements: a headline stating your service and location (“Licensed Plumbing Repair in Austin, TX”), a phone number or “Call Now” button, and a secondary CTA like “Get a Free Estimate” that links to a form.

Skip the slider. Rotating image carousels reduce conversions by up to 23% compared to a static hero section. They slow down page load, distract from your primary message, and most visitors never see past the first slide.

Princeton Air Conditioning, a New Jersey HVAC company, redesigned their above-the-fold section with a geo-targeted headline, visible phone number, and “Schedule Service” button. Their website conversion rate climbed from 2.1% to 8.3%. The biggest single change: replacing a generic stock photo slider with a static hero showing a real technician and a single clear call-to-action.

Make sure your pages are structured properly. Our guide on what pages a contractor website needs walks through the exact layout and content for each page.

Check 6: Are your pages targeting the right keywords?

Having a website with pages about your services isn’t enough. Those pages need to target the specific phrases homeowners actually type into Google.

46% of all Google searches have local intent. Homeowners search “AC repair near me” or “plumber [city name].” If your service pages don’t include location-specific keywords, Google has no reason to show them to local searchers.

Check your page titles. A page titled “Our Services” tells Google nothing. A page titled “AC Repair and Installation in Phoenix, AZ” tells Google exactly who should see that page. Every service page should include your city or service area in the title tag, the H1 heading, and naturally throughout the body content.

Long-tail keywords drive 70% of search traffic. “Emergency water heater repair Dallas” has less competition than “plumber Dallas” and attracts homeowners with immediate, specific needs. These searchers are closer to hiring, and your pages should target them.

Contractors who implement structured data (schema markup) on their service pages see an average 30% increase in click-through rates from search results. Schema tells Google exactly what services you offer, your service area, and your review ratings in a format the algorithm can parse directly. Your search listing shows rich snippets with star ratings and service details instead of a plain blue link. Our guide on schema markup for home services walks through the implementation.

Missing service area pages is another common gap. If you serve 8 cities but only mention your headquarters city, you’re invisible in the other 7. Each city in your service area needs its own page with unique content.

Check 7: Do you have enough trust signals?

Even when visitors find your site and see your services, they won’t contact you without trust. 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

If your website doesn’t display your Google review count and star rating, your license and insurance numbers, photos of your actual team (not stock photos), and any certifications or industry affiliations, you’re asking visitors to take a leap of faith. Most won’t.

Harrington Movers increased conversions by 45.45% just by switching from stock photos to real photos of their team and trucks. Authenticity beats polish every time. Homeowners want to see the actual people who will show up at their door, not a stock image of a model holding a wrench.

Websites with visible reviews convert 270% better than those without any social proof. Embedding a Google Reviews widget takes 10 minutes and can dramatically increase the number of visitors who pick up the phone.

Add trust signals to every page, not just your homepage. A service page for “AC installation” should include testimonials from AC installation customers. Match the proof to the page.

Check 8: Is your contact information everywhere?

Your phone number should appear in the header on every page. Not just the contact page. Not just the footer. The header.

44% of visitors who reach a website through local search look for contact information immediately. If they have to hunt for it, they leave. Your phone number should be visible without scrolling on every single page of your site.

Contact forms should be short. Name, phone, email, and a brief job description. Every additional field reduces form completions by 11%. A 10-field intake form on a contractor website is a conversion killer.

If you offer 24/7 emergency service, say it prominently. “24/7 Emergency Service — Call (555) 123-4567” in red text in your header removes doubt for the homeowner with a midnight emergency.

Check 9: Is anything tracking what happens on your site?

68% of small business websites have no analytics installed. No Google Analytics. No call tracking. No form submission tracking. The business owner has zero visibility into how many people visit, what they look at, or why they leave.

Without tracking, you’re guessing. You don’t know if your problem is zero traffic or zero conversions. You don’t know which pages attract visitors and which ones are invisible. You don’t know if your $500/month SEO investment is producing results.

On the Owned and Operated podcast, John Wilson (Wilson Companies) described the moment he installed proper call tracking and discovered that 40% of his “website leads” were actually returning customers calling from the website instead of the number they already had saved. Without tracking, he was double-counting leads and overestimating his website’s performance for new customer acquisition.

Install Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console at minimum. Add call tracking if you want to know which marketing channels produce phone calls. Track form submissions as conversions so you can measure your actual lead volume.

96% of website visitors leave without converting. That’s the baseline you’re working against. Understanding what’s happening on your site is the first step to improving those numbers.

The diagnostic sequence that matters

Work through these checks in order. Visibility comes first — if Google can’t find you, nothing else matters. Speed and mobile usability come next because they affect both rankings and user experience. Then CTA placement and trust signals, which determine whether the visitors you do get take action.

Most contractor websites have 3-5 of these problems simultaneously. A site that loads in 9 seconds, has no mobile optimization, buries its phone number, and targets no local keywords is fighting on multiple fronts. Fixing one issue won’t move the needle much. Fixing all of them transforms results.

A single-owner plumbing company in Denver fixed their mobile speed, added a clickable phone number to the header, and created service area pages for 6 suburbs. Organic leads increased 340% in 90 days without spending a dollar on ads.

The website itself is rarely the whole picture. Your site is one piece of a lead generation system that includes Google Business Profile, local SEO, review management, and follow-up speed. But if the website is broken, every other investment underperforms.

Start with the check that’s easiest to verify. Pull up your site on your phone right now. Count how many seconds it takes to load. Find your phone number. Try to call it. If any part of that experience is slow, confusing, or frustrating, that’s where your leads are dying.