Nine homepage mistakes that quietly cost you enquiries
A homepage rarely loses enquiries in any dramatic way. It loses them quietly, one puzzled visitor at a time, and the nine mistakes below are the ones we see most often. Nearly all of them can be fixed without rebuilding anything. Each comes with what it looks like, how to check your own site and the fix, and the checklist at the end takes half an hour.
1. A headline that says nothing
"Welcome to our website" and "Excellence in everything we do" tell a visitor nothing. Nor does a slogan that could belong to any business in any industry.
How to check: show your homepage for five seconds to someone who doesn't know your business, then close it. Ask them what you do and who it's for. If they can't say, the headline isn't doing its job.
The fix: say what you do and who it's for, in plain words, and if you serve a local area, say where. It's harder than it sounds, and explaining what you do in one sentence shows you how to get there.
2. Talking about yourself, not the customer
Count how many sentences on your homepage start with "We" or "Our". Customers care about their own problem first, and about your history a distant second.
The fix: rewrite the opening section around what the customer gets. "We have 20 years of experience in accountancy" becomes "Your accounts done properly, and questions answered the same day". Keep the experience, but move it to where it backs up a claim rather than leading the page.
3. No clear next step
When six buttons all ask for different things, people often choose none. The usual suspects are "Learn more", "Get in touch", "Book a call", "Download our brochure" and "Follow us", all competing for attention near the top.
The fix: decide which single action matters most, usually an enquiry, a call or a booking. Make it the obvious button, and repeat it at the natural decision points down the page. Offer one quieter alternative for people who aren't ready yet, such as seeing prices or examples. A landing page goes a step further and has only one action.
4. Hiding the proof
Reviews, client names, qualifications, awards and examples of work all build trust, yet too often they're buried at the bottom or on a separate page nobody visits.
The fix: bring your strongest, most specific proof up to where people are making up their minds. One short, specific review near the top beats a carousel of vague ones at the bottom. If you have a Google rating you're proud of, show it and link to the source.
5. Slow on a phone
Large images, heavy scripts, video that plays by itself and pop-ups that cover the screen all drive people away before they've read a word. Google Analytics will tell you how many of your visitors are on a phone, so test the homepage on one.
How to check: run your homepage through PageSpeed Insights. Google's Core Web Vitals, its measures of how quickly a page loads and how steady it feels, count three things as good across most real visits: the main content appears within 2.5 seconds, the page responds to a tap within 200 milliseconds, and the layout doesn't jump about as it loads.
In a PageSpeed Insights report, those three appear as Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint and Cumulative Layout Shift, and the last of them should be 0.1 or less.
The fix: resize and compress images to the size they're shown at, and remove scripts you no longer use (old chat widgets and tracking tags are common offenders). Delay anything that isn't needed straight away.
6. Jargon
Industry terms feel precise to you and baffling to customers, and so do internal names for services that only make sense inside your business.
The fix: read the page aloud to someone outside your industry, and every time they frown, rewrite the sentence in the words a customer would use. The best source of those words is your customers themselves: their emails, their reviews and their calls.
7. Making contact hard
A long form, no phone number, no email address, and no idea what happens after you get in touch: each one loses people who were ready to talk.
The fix: keep forms to what you need in order to reply, usually a name, a way to reply and a short message. Show a phone number and email address as well, for people who prefer them. Then say exactly what happens next and when: "We reply within one working day" does more than any design change.
8. Text people struggle to read
Pale grey text on white, text over busy photographs and tiny type on phones all make people work to read you, and many won't bother. They also shut out visitors with low vision.
How to check: the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines set a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text, and free contrast checkers will test your colours in seconds.
The fix: darken the body text, put a solid or darkened background behind any text on a photograph, and make sure text on a phone is comfortable to read without zooming.
9. Out-of-date details
An offer that ended last year, a copyright date from years ago, an old phone number, a team page full of people who've left, a "latest news" section that quietly stopped: each one makes a visitor wonder whether you're still trading.
The fix: once a quarter, walk through the homepage looking only for anything that's no longer true, and remove whatever you aren't willing to keep up to date.
The half-hour homepage check
Work through this on your own homepage, on a phone first and then on a computer. Your ticks are saved in this browser.
- Someone new can say what we do and who for after five seconds.
What good looks like
A stranger who sees your homepage for five seconds can tell you what you do and who it is for, in roughly the words you would use yourself. If they guess wrong, the headline needs rewriting before anything else on the page.
- If we serve a local area, the area is named near the top.
What good looks like
The town or area you cover appears in the headline or the sentence under it, in plain words, so a visitor from nearby knows at once that you work where they are. A list of place names in the footer does not count.
- The opening talks about what the customer gets, not about us.
What good looks like
The first few sentences describe the result a customer gets, and most of them start with "you" or "your" rather than "we" or "our". Your experience is still on the page, lower down, backing up a claim.
- There is one obvious main action, and it is visible without scrolling on a phone.
What good looks like
On a phone, before any scrolling, there is one button that stands out, and it asks for the thing you most want: an enquiry, a call or a booking. Any second option is visibly quieter.
- Our strongest, most specific proof is near the top, not buried.
What good looks like
One specific review, rating or example of work sits close to the top, near the main button, where people are deciding. It names a real result rather than praising you in general terms.
- PageSpeed Insights shows no poor Core Web Vitals on mobile.
What good looks like
The mobile results in PageSpeed Insights show no Core Web Vital marked as poor for your homepage. Where your site has too few visits for real-user data, the lab test shows no large images or unused scripts flagged.
- There is no jargon a customer would not use.
What good looks like
Someone outside your industry reads the page aloud without stopping to ask what a word means. Services carry the names customers use for them, not the names you use internally.
- The contact form asks only for what we need, and says what happens next.
What good looks like
The form asks for a name, a way to reply and a short message, and little else. Beside it, a sentence says exactly what happens next and when, such as when you will reply.
- A phone number or email address is visible for people who prefer it.
What good looks like
A phone number and an email address are on the homepage in text, and on a phone, tapping them opens the dialler or the email app.
- Text is easy to read, with enough contrast, on a phone.
What good looks like
On a phone, body text reads comfortably without zooming, and a contrast checker passes your text colours at 4.5:1 for normal text. Text over photographs sits on a solid or darkened background.
- Nothing on the page is out of date.
What good looks like
Every offer, date, price, phone number and name on the homepage is true today. Anything you are not willing to keep up to date, such as a news section, has been removed.
Fix it, then measure it
Before you change anything, note how many enquiries the website brought in over the last month or two. Make the changes in small groups, compare the same length of time afterwards, and you'll learn which fixes mattered to your customers.
And if it turns out the site itself is what's holding you back, our websites service starts with a fixed-price landing page sprint at £3,500, with full sites from £3,500 to £15,000.
Questions people ask
What should a business homepage say first?
What you do, who it's for and, if you serve a local area, where. Say it in plain words, at the top, before anything else. A visitor should be able to repeat it back after a few seconds.
Do I need a new website to get more enquiries?
Usually not. Most of the fixes that matter, such as a clearer headline, one obvious next step, proof near the top, a shorter form and faster images, can be made to an existing site in a week or two.
How fast should my homepage load?
Google's Core Web Vitals treat a Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds as good, measured across most of your real visitors, on phones as well as computers. PageSpeed Insights will test your page for free.
How many buttons should a homepage have?
One main action, repeated where it makes sense, and perhaps one quieter alternative for people who aren't ready yet. When every section asks for something different, visitors often choose none.
How do I know which homepage changes worked?
Track enquiries from the website before you change anything, then compare the same length of time afterwards. Change a few things at a time, so you can tell what made the difference.
I founded oXo Creatives, an independent marketing agency and consultancy, in 2013 and run it full-time. Until 2026 I ran it alongside senior in-house marketing roles at Google, PlayStation and King, partner management at Meta, and digital product at NatWest.
Want help with websites?
New sites, landing pages and fixes to the pages you have, so more visitors get in touch. A few weeks, depending on how many pages and whether a developer is involved.
