A website, no leads.

“No leads” is three different problems

This is the most common reason people come to us: the site is built, ads are running, money is being charged — and there are no leads, or only random ones. And almost always the conversation starts with the wrong question: “what is wrong with the site”.

The site is only one link in the chain. Before changing anything, the problem needs to be pinned down: behind the words “no leads” hide three different situations, and each is treated differently.

Step one: work out which of the three

No traffic. The site receives fewer than a few hundred targeted visits a month. It is too early to discuss conversion: with fifty visits even an excellent site will produce one or two leads, and any conclusions about its quality will be guesswork. What needs fixing is the acquisition channels.

Traffic but no leads. Hundreds and thousands of visits with conversion noticeably below one per cent. This is already a conversation about the site and about the quality of the traffic itself — and this is where most cases sit.

Leads but no sales. Formally the site works, but leads do not turn into money. This is the domain of the sales team and lead quality: how quickly they call back, what they say, whether the ads bring the right people. The site is to blame least often, although it is precisely the site they start rebuilding.

You can tell them apart in half an hour in Yandex Metrica. Below we break down the second situation — it is the most common and the most layered.

When traffic is to blame

High visitor numbers easily create the illusion that acquisition is fine. But leads are made not by the volume of traffic but by its composition.

Non-targeted queries. The site is promoted on informational queries that bring readers rather than buyers. Thousands of visits to the article “how to choose a kitchen” produce zero leads for a workshop that manufactures kitchens: these people are still choosing, not ordering. Check with the report on search phrases and landing pages.

Advertising that is too broad. Automated strategies and broad targeting without negative keywords bring everyone in: browsers, comparers, people looking for something free, the neighbouring region. The marker is a high bounce rate specifically on ad visits, from thirty per cent and up.

Brand traffic masks the problem. If a noticeable share of visits comes from people who were searching for the company by name anyway, the overall statistics look decent, while the non-brand channels may not be working at all. Look at the metrics with brand traffic excluded: the picture often changes radically.

The promise does not match the landing page. The ad promises a specific timeframe and price but leads to a generic home page where that promise still has to be found. Every extra step between the click and confirmation of the promise loses some of the visitors.

When the site is to blame: offer and trust

The offer is the deepest and most common cause. The site says “we make websites, kitchens, renovations”, but does not answer the question of why to order from you rather than from the three neighbouring tabs. No prices or at least price ranges, no timeframes, no points of difference. Beautiful design does not compensate for an empty offer — it just keeps the visitor around a little longer before they leave.

Trust. The visitor is looking for signs that the company is real and can deliver: case studies with figures and photographs, genuine reviews, the team, company details, live contacts. Before sending an enquiry, people go off to check reviews on external platforms — the site has to withstand that comparison too.

When the site is to blame: convenience and action

Convenience. This is where the technical conversion killers live: loading longer than three seconds, a broken mobile version — and that is usually sixty to eighty per cent of traffic — an eight-field form, mandatory registration, a phone number hidden in the footer. Individually each item seems trivial; together they eat up half of the potential leads.

Action. What exactly does the site propose doing? “Leave an enquiry” without explaining what happens next is a weak proposition. “Get a cost estimate in 20 minutes” is a strong one. Each page should have one clear next action with a clear outcome, not five equal buttons.

Diagnostics instead of arguing about taste

Everything listed above is determined not by a meeting but by data. Webvisor and click maps show where people stop, what they scroll past without reading and on which field they abandon the form.

The first condition is tracking that is set up: goals in Yandex Metrica for all forms and calls. Without it any conclusions are blind, and the discussion boils down to whose favourite heading wins.

In what order to fix things

• Tracking — goals for forms and calls, otherwise there is nothing to measure with.
• Pinning it down — determine which of the three situations you are facing.
• Traffic — negative keywords, switching off junk placements, landing pages that match the ads.
• Offer and trust on the key pages — before any talk of a redesign.
• Technical barriers — speed, the mobile version, short forms.
• Iterations — one hypothesis, one change, a measured result.

A full redesign appears last on this list, and only if the audit has revealed structural problems. In practice leads most often come back at steps three to five — without rebuilding the site from scratch.

Frequently asked questions

Where to start if there are no analytics at all?

With installing a counter and goals for forms and calls. A week of accumulated data will give more than a month of assumptions.

What website conversion rate is considered normal?

There is no universal figure — it depends on the niche, the price and the traffic source. There is only one benchmark: your own past figures.

Could it simply be an outdated design?

Sometimes yes, but that should be checked last. Far more often the site looks fine, and what gets in the way is an empty offer and a long form.

Should the ads be switched off while the site is being fixed?

No: without traffic you will not see the effect of the changes. It is better to narrow the campaigns down to the most targeted queries and work on those.

What to do next

“The website is not bringing leads” is a symptom, not a diagnosis. Which of the three problems you are facing can be determined in one evening from Yandex Metrica data — before spending money on rebuilds. Companies that go in the opposite order buy a new site with the same zero leads.

We examine the whole chain and fix it in order — that is website development. Next, our guides on how to increase landing page conversion and how to work with client reviews will come in handy.