Below are ten research-backed signs your website may be costing you enquiries and sales, plus what to do about each one.
Speed is still one of the biggest silent killers of conversions. Google has reported that when page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds, the probability of a bounce rises by 32%.
If you are paying for ads or doing SEO, slow pages reduce the return on everything.
What to do: compress images, reduce scripts and plugins, improve hosting, and track Core Web Vitals.
Mobile is not just a smaller screen. It is a different behaviour pattern. If your site is not mobile-friendly, visitors are far more likely to abandon it. Google states visitors are 5 times more likely to leave if a site is not mobile-friendly.
Also, Google uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking (mobile-first indexing).
What to do: design mobile-first, simplify layouts, make buttons easy to tap, and keep key actions visible without scrolling forever.
People judge credibility quickly, and design quality is one of the strongest signals. Nielsen Norman Group notes that design quality and clear, current content remain key factors in perceived trustworthiness.
The Stanford Web Credibility research also found that a large share of users base credibility partly on visual design cues.
What to do: upgrade typography and spacing, use real photography where possible, add clear contact details, and make the site feel maintained.
If someone lands on your site and cannot quickly answer “What do you do and why should I care?”, you lose them. Many “nice looking” sites still fail here because the headline is vague and the messaging is generic.
What to do: lead with a clear promise, who it is for, and the next action to take.
A surprising number of sites rely on a tiny “Contact” link in the menu and hope visitors figure it out. If your site does not guide users, they will not convert.
What to do: use one primary action per page, repeat it naturally through the page, and ensure it is obvious on mobile.
In 2026, responsiveness matters as much as load time. Google replaced FID with INP as a Core Web Vital, making interaction responsiveness a formal performance metric.
If buttons lag, menus stutter, or the page freezes when users scroll, trust drops.
What to do: reduce heavy scripts, remove unnecessary animations, and test INP on real devices.
If users cannot find pricing, services, locations, product categories, or “how it works” quickly, they bounce. This is especially common on service sites with too many menu items and unclear labels.
What to do: simplify the menu, group logically, use plain language, and make key pages reachable in one to two clicks.
Long forms lower enquiry rates. In ecommerce, checkout friction is a proven abandonment driver. Baymard’s research shows 18% of users have abandoned a purchase because checkout felt too long or complicated.
Even for lead gen sites, unnecessary fields are conversion killers.
What to do: remove non-essential fields, use smart defaults, and confirm the form works flawlessly on mobile.
For ecommerce, surprise costs are a top reason customers abandon carts, and global cart abandonment remains high overall.
For service businesses, hiding pricing signals or process details creates mistrust and increases drop-off.
What to do: set expectations early, explain your process, and make pricing guidance or “starting from” ranges easy to find.
If visitors arrive from Google or social media and immediately hit a full-screen popup, many will leave. There is also an SEO risk: Google has long targeted intrusive interstitials on mobile in its guidance and the broader SEO community continues to treat them as a ranking and UX problem.
What to do: use smaller, timed prompts, avoid blocking the main content, and show popups only after intent is clear.