Can a stranger tell what you do in ten seconds?

Why isn't your website getting enquiries?

No study can tell you why your particular site gets visits and no messages, and the people who leave do not explain. What an outdated site costs over a year has its own post. This one is a test you can run today.

The test has two halves. The first is the opening ten seconds on your homepage. The second is the enquiry path: the button, the phone number, the proof, the form, and what happens after someone presses send.

The first ten seconds on your homepage

NN/g's 2011 analysis of page visits found the first 10 seconds critical to whether people stay^[1]. Most of that look lands near the top. In NN/g's 2018 eyetracking study, 57% of viewing time went to the part of the page visible before scrolling^[2]. That study used large screens and a mix of news, shopping and other sites, none of them small business sites. NN/g's advice (2017) is to say who you are and what you do early. It also advises against several calls to action of equal weight competing for the same glance^[3].

So run the test. Open your homepage on a phone and hand it to someone who does not know your business. Take it back after ten seconds and ask them four questions. What does this business do, who is it for, where does it work, and what would you do next if you wanted it?

Say your homepage opens on a full-screen photo and the word "Welcome". The stranger can tell the work looks good and can answer none of the four. Any answer they have to guess belongs in the words at the top of the page.

The fourth question depends on your button. In NN/g's 2017 eyetracking, users fixed on a "Get Started" button at the top of the page and never scrolled to the service details. Some assumed they had to sign up to learn more. On one meal-delivery site, 6 of 8 users clicked it^[4]. Those were sign-up services with small samples. NN/g's recommendation applies to any button: say what the person gets. "Check a wedding date" or "Ask for a bathroom quote" tells a stranger what happens when they tap.

Three names on a short list

By the time someone reaches your homepage, they may already be comparing you with others. Google's Australian research on home services traced how people chose a provider^[5]. Its figures are about trades and home services, from 2015 fieldwork, and they are more than ten years old.

Phones carry that decision. In the same research, about two thirds of Australians ended up booking home services by phone^[5]. Google's guide for legal and tax services gives professional firms the same advice: click-to-call buttons and contact forms that work on a phone^[6].

The check takes a minute. On your phone, tap the number on your homepage and see whether it dials. Then open two inner pages and see whether the number and a way to enquire are still within reach. Nobody can promise a ranking or a mention in search or in an AI assistant. This test is about what happens once someone is already on your site.

Proof a stranger can check

In NN/g's 2016 trust study, one participant left a cleaning-service site after about 35 seconds because it did not state its rates^[7]. Every participant in that study said they would read reviews before hiring. They trusted reviews on outside sites more than testimonials on the business's own page^[7]. In a 2026 survey of US consumers by BrightLocal, a local search vendor, 47% would not use a business with fewer than 20^[8]. A good review often sends people to your site while they are still deciding.

Check what a stranger can verify there. Is there a starting price or a range, or at least what changes the price? Can they find your reviews on a profile you do not control, with a link from your site?

A contact form that works on a phone

Small choices on a form change how many people get through it. A 2014 study by Seckler and colleagues, summarised by NN/g, compared forms that followed usability guidelines with forms that broke them^[9].

NN/g also advises a short form, and cut one of its own from six fields to two. It recommends labels above the fields on a phone, and error messages that are specific and easy to see^[9]. Mark every required field, usually with an asterisk, instead of a note saying all fields are required^[10]. No reliable study puts a number on how many fields is too many for a contact form. Ask only for what you need to send a useful first reply.

Question the phone number field first. Baymard's research on it covers retail checkout, not contact forms^[11]. Zuko, a form analytics vendor, says the phone field has one of the highest abandonment rates of the common fields in its data^[12]. If you need the number, say why. If you can reply by email, make it optional.

Now fill in your own form on your phone and leave a required field blank on purpose. The message should name the field and say what is wrong. In Baymard's 2015 review of 50 large retail sites on mobile, 92% used generic error messages that did not^[13]. Those were checkout forms, and a contact form can fail in the same way.

How quickly to reply to a website enquiry

Press send on that test enquiry and wait. Check that it reaches an inbox someone reads, that the sender gets a confirmation, and that the confirmation says when they will hear back.

The best-known study of reply times is American, from 2011, and reached us second-hand, through SmartCompany's report of a Harvard Business Review study. A separate data set covered 1.25 million leads. Companies that made contact within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead as those that waited longer^[14]. Google's 2015 Australian research said much the same of smaller businesses: they "need to be quick to respond to enquiries, especially on the phone"^[5].