3 Things Killing Your Website Conversions (Fix All 3 Today)

I look at websites all day, every day. It's the job. People send me their site, they tell me it's not working, and I go digging around to find out why.

And after twelve years of this, I can tell you that the same three problems come up over and over. Not fifty problems... Three.

I ran a live workshop on these recently because I wanted to get it all in one place (and maybe have something to send to my awesome people that book consults with me). The recording is embedded above if you'd rather watch me talk through it with real website examples. But here's the written version, because some of you would rather read ;)

Quick disclaimer before we start: the only reason I'm qualified to teach this is because I've made every single one of these mistakes myself, maybe more times than I can count. Sometimes I'm halfway through a client build, I look back at the design, and I go... hold on, we're breaking rule number two right here... we have to fix that.

So this is not me wagging a finger. It's me telling you what I check first.

First, let's talk about what a conversion actually is

This is where most people go wrong before we even get to the website design and build itself.

Nine times out of ten, someone books a consult call with me and says their site isn't converting. I ask what a conversion means to them, and they say "it's not making any sales."

Okay. But your homepage was probably never going to make the sale.

A conversion is the first action, not the final one. Expecting someone to land on your homepage and immediately buy your $4,000 package is like proposing on a first date. It happens (the sale, probably not the proposal lol). I can count the times on one hand across twelve years of doing this that someone has purchased one of my services without booking a call with me first. If I built my business banking on that, I would be significantly more broke than I already am, and I have four kids... I'll let you do the math on that one with today's cost of living hah!

The actual job of your homepage is to give someone enough information to confidently take the next step.

For most service providers, that next step is booking a call. Sometimes it's joining your email list. If you're in e-commerce you're a bit of an outlier and it might be grabbing a discount code, though that's still getting them onto your list. Maybe it's starting a free trial.

Here's the way I explain it that seems to stick:

👉 Your website is the front door of your shop. It is not the salesperson inside.

The door's job is to look clean, look professional, and make someone want to walk in. That's it. Once they're inside, the selling gets done by you, or your email list, or your follow-up. Not by the door (unless you're a door salesman?!).

So when we talk about fixing conversions, we're talking about getting more people through the door. Not closing them on the doorstep.

Two things that have changed recently

I would have taught this workshop differently even two years ago. A couple of things have shifted and they're worth naming.

Trust matters more than it used to, not less. People are wading through an enormous amount of content that has no human behind it. AI slop, if we're being blunt about it. You can feel it when you're reading it. Which means the sites that feel like a real person made them stand out more than they did five years ago. Also this does not mean that personally I don't use AI to help me, because I do! But it means you HAVE to get in there and edit, add human voice (yours!), add what makes you uniquely you. Do NOT, I repeat... DO NOT just paste in what your AI gives you and call it a day.

And no, AI does not mean you don't need a website. I hear this one a lot. "Everyone's using AI now, why do I need a site?" Well... where do you think the AI gets its information? It goes to websites. It reads them. Then it recommends them to people. I've had ChatGPT send website clients directly to me. If you're not there, you're not in the recommendation pool.

Right. On to the three killers.

Conversion killer #1: nobody can tell what you do

I'd guarantee that if I pulled up the sites of half the people who registered for this workshop, this would be the broken thing. Some of you were brave enough to give me your URLs... thanks for doing that!).

You have about five seconds. Arguably three, because attention spans are what they are now. Five seconds for someone to understand what you do and want to consider a next step.

And what happens instead is that people invest in a genuinely beautiful hero banner that says something like "welcome to my website." And the visitor goes... okay. And then has to scroll for a while to figure out what's actually being sold here.

What this looks like on a real site

• A gorgeous hero image with the word welcome on it

• A headline about you instead of about them (something like "creating beautiful websites since 2014," which, sure, but it doesn't tell you what I can do for you)

• Clever branded language or industry jargon that you understand and your ideal client doesn't

• Three different descriptions of what you do scattered across the same page

• Anything that requires scrolling before the basic "what is this" question gets answered

Why it costs you

If someone can't tell what you do and who it's for in five seconds, they leave.

They don't email you to clarify. They don't scroll to investigate. They don't call. They just go. And the brutal part is you never find out, because nobody is tracking that metric.

How to fix it

Write it like you would say it out loud. If you were having a coffee with someone and they asked what you do for a living, you wouldn't come up with some whimsical clever line on the spot. You'd say "I do this thing for these people." That's your headline.

Mine is essentially: I build Podia websites for coaches and course creators. Is it boring? A bit. Fine by me. Boring beats clever as long as it's clear.

Name who it's for. Explicitly. If your business depends on local traffic, get your location in there too.

Put it above the fold. Meaning before anyone has to scroll. Check this on mobile especially, because if you've got an image stacking above your headline, your visitors might be scrolling past the most important sentence on your site.

Run the five second test properly. Do not show it to someone who already knows you and what you do. That's an unfair advantage and they'll tell you it's obvious. Show it to someone with zero context. Five seconds. Ask them what you do and who you do it for.

Conversion killer #2: there's no obvious next step (or there are nine)

This is the one that even shows up on sites I've built, because clients sometimes decide the call-to-action button doesn't look pretty up there and move it further down. Then I have to go back and say... no, we need to put that back.

What this looks like

• Six buttons on the homepage, all styled identically, so the visitor assumes they're all equally important

• The main call to action existing as a text link buried in a paragraph

• "Contact me" as the only option, with no reason given to contact you

• The button existing, but three screens down, by which point people have wandered off

• "Sign up for my newsletter" with nothing behind it

That last one deserves its own paragraph. We should all have an email list. It's how I market my business, and roughly 1% of my leads come from social media... everything else comes from referrals and email. But nobody is signing up because you asked them to sign up. They want to know what's in it for them. It's a selfish "what do I get" moment, and that's fine, that's just how it works.

Why it costs you

A confused visitor doesn't choose. They leave.

It's like walking into a shop on the one day you actually needed help, and nobody offers to help you.

Every extra option splits attention and lowers the odds of any of them getting clicked. More choices feels generous, but it converts worse.

How to fix it

Pick one primary action for the page. For me it's book a call, because that's the first step of working together. Everything else goes underneath it and does not carry equal weight.

You can absolutely have more than one button. They just shouldn't compete. There's a hierarchy, and one thing sits at the top of it.

Repeat the main call to action. On my homepage it's up top, then further down there's a trust banner, then ways to work with me, then at the very bottom I ask again... because if you made it all the way down there, you shouldn't have to scroll back up. A sticky header does the same job if your site has one.

Make it a button, not a text link. Different devices render text differently, but a button always looks clickable. This matters most on mobile.

Give your newsletter a reason to exist. Something specific in exchange for the email address.

Conversion killer #3: there's no proof where it counts

You probably have testimonials. They're probably sitting on a page called Testimonials or Client Love. And almost nobody visits that page.

What this looks like

• All your social proof living on one dedicated page and nowhere else

• No face, no name, no real human anywhere on the site

• Zero logos, credentials, or numbers you've earned

• Old reviews (a five-year-old testimonial raises more questions than it answers... it's almost better to have none)

• Testimonials with initials only, or ones that read as invented

• A contact form that gives no indication of when you'll reply

On the "no real human" point: there are legitimate exceptions. I built a site for a teacher who didn't want his students finding photos of him. I've worked with non-profits that couldn't show their team for safety reasons. Fine. But if you're a service provider, people are buying you, and you should be near the top of the page.

And on pricing... this one is personal preference and I'll say so plainly. I dislike prices hidden behind "contact me for a quote." If you're selling genuinely custom high-ticket work, "packages starting at X" makes sense. But when I see no pricing at all, I assume the call is going to be high pressure, and I usually don't book it.

I ran my own site without pricing for a brief period years ago. It made my sales calls so awkward. And that's what they were... sales calls. Now people book a chat having already seen the price and what's included, so we just get to know each other and talk about their business.

Does that mean some people see the number, don't understand the value, and leave? Probably. But I have four kids, I'm married to a first responder, and I'm running multiple businesses. I can't spend my week on calls with people who think the service is $500 when it's $4,000.

Why it costs you

Trust doesn't get built on your About page. It gets built at the exact moment someone is deciding whether to click further or book the call.

If the proof isn't sitting near that moment, it may as well not exist.

How to fix it

Move the proof to where the decision happens. Keep your testimonials page if you like (I still have one too!). Just also sprinkle proof through the homepage and onto your sales pages. My design services page has a big portfolio near the bottom, because that's where people are deciding, and seeing the volume of work I've done is the thing that makes them trust me.

Use a real face and a real full name wherever you can. First name plus last initial is acceptable if you have to.

Add logos, credentials, or earned numbers. A "featured in" banner, how long you've been doing this, whatever you legitimately have.

Chase your reviews. It is painfully hard to get people to leave a Google review, even happy clients. I follow up multiple times and I offer to write the text for them to copy and paste. Annoying, but Google sends me traffic, so it's worth it.

Set expectations on your contact form. "I'll get back to you within one business day" costs you nothing and stops the form feeling like a black hole.

The three fixes:

1. Say the plain thing. One clear sentence at the top: what you do and who it's for.

2. Give the page one job. Pick a single primary action, repeat it, demote everything else.

3. Move the proof. Put testimonials and trust signals where the decision actually happens.

None of these require a designer by the way. If you can log into your site and edit it, you could do all three today.

I said that on the workshop and I saw a few sceptical faces. But one of the attendees, Anna, had made every change from her audit before I'd even sent her part two. On a platform I don't work in. Same day. So it's certainly not impossible. And cheers to you Anna - amazing job!

Seven more things I see constantly

The three above are the big ones. But since I look at sites every day, here's what else comes up when someone asks me for a redesign:

4. It's not mobile friendly. Most modern templates are responsive out of the box, but older hard-coded sites still aren't, and that's where most of your traffic is (most likely anyways... mine is more desktop but that's because my target are business owners working on their laptops)

5. Navigation overload. Too many menu items and people don't know where to start. I have far more services than what's in my main nav... if I put them all up there, people would leave to find someone who could simplify their life.

6. Huge uncompressed images. Less common now that platforms compress for you, but it tanks load time and load time kills conversions on mobile.

7. No clear way to contact you. Still happens and still baffling LOL

8. A vague "join my newsletter." Covered above

9. Stock photos of people who aren't real. Same energy as AI-generated images of a team that doesn't exist. People can tell.

10. Nothing to keep them warm after a no. If ten people visit my site today, maybe one books a call, and that's fine... I can only build a handful of sites a month anyway. But if I have nothing to offer the other nine, that's a failure on my part. So I have free tools that collect a name and email, which means I can stay in touch until they're ready. (Just make sure you're compliant with CASL if you're in Canada, or GDPR, or whatever applies where you are.)

Bonus: the homepage flow I use on almost every build

I get asked about this constantly, especially by clients who tell me they have no direction and want me to just decide. This varies by industry, but here's my default running order:

1. Clean navigation. You can have more pages than appear here. Keep the menu simple.

2. Hero section. What you do, who it's for, and the next step.

3. Trust banner. Testimonials, logos, a small section of proof.

4. How we can work together. Now that they know what you do and have a reason to trust you, show them the options. I pick my top three, not all of them.

5. About me. Hey, I'm Brittany. This goes after the offer, because leading with yourself reads as all-about-me. (You can weave small personal touches in earlier... mine is an animated graphic near the top with a few fun facts.)

6. Something interactive. Optional. Quizzes, calculators, fun things. Don't start here. Add it once the basics are converting.

7. More detail, only if needed. For anything you touched on briefly up top that needs a longer explanation.

8. Ask again. Main call to action, one more time, at the bottom.

Most people are missing a couple of these. I've never seen a site missing all eight, because at that point you essentially don't have a website.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a conversion on a website? The first meaningful action a visitor takes, not the final sale. For most service-based businesses that's booking a call or joining an email list. For e-commerce it might be grabbing a discount code or starting a free trial. Your homepage's job is to make that first step easy and obvious.

How long do I have to make an impression on my homepage? Roughly five seconds. Some would argue three. Within that window a visitor should understand what you do and who you do it for, or they leave without telling you why.

Should I put my prices on my website? This is personal preference and there are good businesses on both sides. I put mine up because it filters out poor-fit enquiries and makes the calls I do take far more relaxed. If your work is genuinely custom, "projects start at X" gives people an anchor without boxing you in.

Do I still need a website if everyone is using AI to search? Yes. AI tools pull their information from websites. If you don't have one, or yours is thin, you're not in the pool of things being recommended.

Can I fix these three problems myself? If you have access to edit your own site, yes. All three are copy and layout changes rather than code. That's specifically why I chose these three to teach.

How many calls to action should be on my homepage? One primary action, repeated a few times down the page. Secondary options are fine as long as they're visually demoted so the hierarchy is obvious.

If you want a second pair of eyes

I'm running these workshops about once a month, all on websites and email marketing. The replay of this one is embedded at the top of this post.

If you'd rather just have me look at your site, I offer a free 10-minute coffee chat. No pitch, no pressure... you can genuinely just ask me whether your headline is any good, or send me the one change you made after reading this and ask if it landed.

👉 Book a free coffee chat

And if you want to see what a full Podia build looks like, my design services and pricing are all listed publicly. Because, as established, I have opinions about hidden pricing.

💜 -Brittany