For solo founders and small businesses

Why visitors don't sign up

You spent money on the site. Traffic shows up. Almost nobody signs up or buys. The page rarely says why out loud. A button sits too far down. The price is missing. The first line could belong to any business. These are the seven blockers that show up most on small live sites. You can spot each one yourself. If you want a short ranked list for your own address, paste your URL for a free summary.

Your homepage never says who it is for

The first screen talks about the product, the features, or the company. It does not name a person or the problem they already have. A new visitor decides in a few seconds whether this is for them. If they cannot tell, they leave before they ever look for a button.

Cover the logo with your hand. Does the next line name a person and a problem? If it only names your product, rewrite that line. Paste your URL for a free summary if you want a second pair of eyes on that first screen.

The main button is hard to find

The action you want is below the fold, the same colour as the body text, or sitting next to three other buttons that all look equal. People scroll once. If they do not see a clear next step, they go.

Shrink the page to the width of a phone. Is there one obvious button before you have to scroll? If you have to hunt for it, so will they. The three steps on the homepage are the shape of a page that does not make people hunt.

Price is missing or vague

"Contact us for pricing" is a closed door. So is a page that never puts a number next to the offer, or that hides the price until after a form. Founders and small teams will not write in to ask. They leave and buy from the site that told them.

Ask a stranger, without coaching, what this costs. If they need more than one click to answer, the price is too hard to find. The price note on this site is one line on purpose: free summary, full report is £9.

Trust is thin

No real name. No way to write to a person. No plain note about what happens to an email address. Only stock photos. Signing up means handing over an address, and emailing a stranger feels risky.

Look at the footer. Is there a real email, and a privacy page that says what you do with it? If either is missing, people will not fill the form even when they want the thing.

The form asks for too much

Name, company, phone, and "how did you hear about us" before you have given them anything. Every extra field cuts the number of people who finish. They did not come to fill in a survey.

The first useful action should take one field. A site address, or an email. If your form needs a paragraph before it helps them, move the extra questions to later.

The page loads slow on a phone

Huge images, heavy scripts, a blank screen for several seconds on a normal connection. Most visitors from a small business site are on a phone. If the page is slow, they are already gone.

Open your homepage on your phone, on cellular, not on the office wifi. If you would not wait, neither will they.

You never say what happens after they click

"Get started" with nothing under it. People picture spam, a hard sell, or an account wall. They would rather leave than find out the hard way.

The button label, plus one line under it, should name the next minute. What they get, and what they do not have to do. On this site the free scan says there is no account to create, and the £9 report opens on the confirmation page after checkout. It is not emailed.

How to check your own site in five minutes

1. Open the page on your phone.
2. Time how long it takes to see a line that says who it is for.
3. Count the clicks to a real price.
4. Count the fields before the first useful action.
5. Or paste the address into MikeSmithAI for a free summary: a score, a short note, and the top three fixes. The full ranked list is £9, once. After payment, the confirmation page opens it. We do not email it.

If you want the longer version of how a scan works, it is on the homepage under how it works and the questions.

Most sites do not need a redesign

They need the costly problems named in order. Start with the free summary. Pay only if you want the full fix list.

Questions