Why Your Landing Page Isn’t Converting: 12 Mistakes Costing You Customers

Landing page optimisation starts with where visitors give up. Here are 12 mistakes that cost customers and the order we’d fix them in.

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A landing page usually fails to convert because visitors can’t tell quickly what’s on offer, can’t find a reason to believe it, or find it awkward to respond. Landing page optimisation means working out which of those is costing you customers and fixing that first.

Why isn’t your landing page converting?

Your landing page isn’t converting because something between the click and the inquiry is stopping people. It’s usually a specific fault you can find in an afternoon. Start by looking at the page on your own phone, on mobile data, as a stranger would. The twelve mistakes below run in the order a visitor meets them.

Where people leave

Five places a landing page loses its visitors

  1. 1While it loadsA blank screen on a phone signal gives people an easy reason to go back to the results.
  2. 2At the headlineThe visitor expected what the ad or search result promised. If the headline says something else, they assume they’re in the wrong place.
  3. 3When they look for proofReviews with no names and no real work to look at leave the claims above them unsupported.
  4. 4At the offer and pricePeople who can’t work out what they’d get or roughly what it costs often put the decision off.
  5. 5At the formThis visitor already wants to respond, and a long form or a dead button still loses them.
The narrowing shape only shows direction and isn’t based on measurements. Your own analytics will show where your visitors leave.

Which mistakes lose visitors in the first few seconds?

Visitors leave fastest when the page is slow or doesn’t match what they clicked.

1. The page promises something different from the ad

A click on “emergency boiler repair” that lands on a general homepage makes the visitor start their search again. Repeat the words of the ad or search result in your headline, and send each campaign to a page about that one thing.

2. It loads slowly on a phone

Slow pages lose people before they’ve read a word. Google’s Web Vitals guidance says the largest element on the page should appear within 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load. Oversized images and video headers are the usual causes, and they’re often the cheapest things to fix.

3. The headline describes you and skips the offer

“Excellence in every project” could belong to anyone. Say what you do, for whom and where. Jakob Nielsen, reading Microsoft Research data on how long people stay on pages, advised getting your value across within 10 seconds. That article dates from 2011, and we haven’t seen anything since that would make us relax about it.

4. The first screen doesn’t say what to do next

If the button sits three scrolls down, plenty of people won’t reach it. Put one clear action on the first screen, worded as the thing they’ll get: “Get a quote” tells them more than “Submit.”

Which mistakes make the offer hard to believe?

Visitors who stay start asking whether the offer is believable, and a page that only asks for trust gives them nothing to check.

5. Several offers compete with each other

A page with four services, a newsletter box and a link to your blog asks the visitor to make a decision you could have made for them. Choose the one action this page is for. If you’re unsure whether one page can carry your whole business, our comparison of landing pages and full websites goes through that choice.

6. It lists tasks and leaves out the result

“We offer drain cleaning and camera inspection” describes your day. Add what the customer ends up with, such as a working drain and a written report, in the terms they’d use to explain it to someone at home.

7. The proof can’t be checked

Anonymous quotes and stock photos of smiling people read as filler. Use reviews with real names, photos of your actual work, and license numbers where they apply. If you don’t have reviews yet, don’t make them up: say how long you’ve been working and show what you’ve done.

8. The price is a mystery

People who can’t tell whether you’re in their range often leave without asking. Publish a price, a “from” price, or the two or three things a quote depends on. A rough idea of cost also filters out inquiries you’d have to turn down anyway.

Which mistakes stop people responding?

People stop responding when the last step takes effort. These faults are also the easiest ones on the page to test.

9. There’s no obvious way to get in touch

In our study of 1,206 local business websites, 41.4% of homepages showed neither an email address nor a contact form. Put a contact option on the page itself, where nobody has to go looking for it.

10. The phone number can’t be tapped

The same study found a phone number that couldn’t be tapped on 16.9% of homepages. On a phone, that means memorizing a number or copying it across by hand. Make it a real call link and test it. Our review of bad website examples has more faults of this kind.

11. The form asks too much

Nielsen Norman Group’s mobile input checklist opens with the right question for each field: “Is this field absolutely necessary?” For most small businesses a name, a way to reply and one short question will do. Then tell people when they’ll hear back, since the form going blank leaves them wondering whether it worked.

12. Nobody counts the inquiries

Page views won’t tell you whether a change helped. Count form submissions and calls from the page, and write down the date of every edit, so you can connect a change to what happened next. A simple spreadsheet is enough at this size.

What order should landing page optimization happen in?

Landing page optimization should start with what’s broken, move on to what’s confusing, and leave persuasion for last, because a better headline can’t rescue a form that doesn’t send. Test mistakes 9 to 11 first, using your own phone and a real inquiry. Fix speed and the match with your ad next, then the headline and the offer, then proof and price.

Change one thing at a time when you can. Before blaming the design, check whether the page has a traffic problem: a page that few people visit needs local SEO or a better-kept Google Business Profile, and no amount of redesign will bring those visitors in.

When are landing page design services worth paying for?

Landing page design services are worth paying for when you’ve got steady traffic and a clear offer, and the page itself is what’s holding you back. That often means a template you can’t edit, a page that breaks on phones, or a list of fixes long enough that starting over is simpler.

We rebuild pages like these through our website redesign service, at a flat $1,000 for one page, usually live in 5 to 7 days. Browse the concept gallery to see the styles we work in. If $1,000 is more than the problem deserves, read what an affordable redesign leaves out first, because several of the fixes above may be free.

Frequently asked questions

What should I fix first on a landing page that isn’t converting?
Send yourself a test inquiry from your phone. If the form or the call button is broken, nothing else on the page can help. After that, check that the headline matches whatever the visitor clicked.
How much traffic do I need before testing landing page changes?
A/B testing needs steady traffic to give a clear answer, and many small business pages don’t get enough. If yours doesn’t, fix the plain faults first and watch your inquiries over the following weeks.
Can a good landing page make up for a weak offer?
Rarely. A clear page helps people see what you’re selling, and if the price, the service or the timing is wrong for them, a clearer page gets you a quicker no. Ask the last few people who turned you down why they did.
How much do landing page design services cost at PageSimple?
A one-page site or redesign is a flat $1,000 and is usually live in 5 to 7 days. Hosting, updates and support are $5 a month after that.

Work with PageSimple

A clearer website, live in about a week.

We rebuild small-business sites into clean, focused landing pages. A flat $1,000 redesign, then $5/month for hosting and care.

Start your redesignSee what’s included

Sources

Checked November 1, 2026. Nielsen Norman Group sells UX training and consulting. web.dev is published by Google.