What your website has to do in the first three seconds

Someone finds your site from a search on their phone, usually while standing in the driveway looking at the problem. They aren't reading the page so much as scanning it, and they're trying to answer three questions.

What do you do?

State the service in plain words at the top of the page, before any slogan about quality and integrity. Every week we look at sites where you have to scroll twice to find out what the company sells.

Do you work where I live?

Put the towns on the page. A homeowner two counties away and a homeowner next door are looking at the same website, and only one of them is a customer you want. Naming your service area filters out the wrong visitors and reassures the right ones.

How do I get a price?

Give them one clear next step, repeated down the page. That means a phone number that dials when tapped, a short form, or a booking link, rather than four buttons competing with each other. If a visitor has to decide how to contact you, some of them decide not to.

The things that cost you calls without you noticing

• Speed. A page that takes six seconds to load on a phone loses people before it appears, and large unoptimized images are almost always the reason.
• Small tap targets. If the phone number isn't easy to tap with a thumb, it isn't easy to call you.
• Stock photos. Homeowners can tell, and photos of your own crews and your own finished work do more than any design touch.
• No proof. Reviews, a rating, or a recognizable local name tell the visitor that other people in this town have already trusted you.

A test you can run right now

Open your site on your phone, hold it at arm's length, and give yourself three seconds. Then look away and say what the business does, where it works, and how you'd get a price. If you can't answer those questions, the homeowner deciding between you and the company below you in the results can't either.