Google sends fewer visitors now. Are the ones who arrive getting in touch?

Many of them could be, with a few changes. Google now answers more questions on the results page itself, so fewer people click through to websites. The people who do arrive may already have read a summary and want to check you, compare you or contact you. That makes the path from arriving on your site to getting in touch more important than it was, and it's something you can check yourself in an afternoon.

Why fewer people are clicking through

In March 2025, the Pew Research Center tracked the Google searches of 900 adults in the US. When an AI summary appeared at the top of the results, people clicked a link to a website on 8% of visits. When there was no summary, they clicked on 15%. Links inside the summary itself were clicked on 1% of visits.

AI summaries have appeared on far more searches since then. You cannot change that, but you can make sure the visitors who do arrive find what they came for. If you'd like to see how often your own pages appear in Google's AI answers, our post on Search Console's new AI report explains how.

Start by checking that your contact form works

It's the simplest check, and a failure here costs you every enquiry the form would have brought in. A contact form can stop delivering without anyone noticing, for example after a change of email provider or hosting.

• Send a test enquiry from your phone and from a computer.
• Check that it arrives, and that it has not gone to spam.
• Check what the sender sees afterwards: a clear confirmation, or a page that leaves them wondering whether it worked.
• Reply to it, and check that your reply reaches the address the visitor entered.

Put a reminder in your calendar to repeat this every few months, and after any change to your email or website.

Check that each page answers the question people arrived with

Many visitors do not arrive on your home page. They land on whichever page matched their search, often a service page or a blog post. Search Console's Performance report shows which pages people reach from Google, and an analytics tool such as Google Analytics shows the same for visitors from other sources.

Take the five pages people land on most, open each on your phone, and look at the first screen without scrolling. Can a visitor tell what you do, where you do it and who it's for? If they have to scroll or click elsewhere to find out, many will not.

Give visitors enough to trust you

Someone deciding whether to contact a business they have not used before is looking for reassurance. The evidence that tends to help most is specific:

• examples of your work, with photographs of real jobs rather than stock images
• reviews from real customers, with their names where they have agreed
• who the visitor will be dealing with, with a name and a photo
• qualifications, memberships or insurance, where they matter in your trade
• prices, or a starting price, where you can give them.

Not every business can publish prices, and some work is too variable to price in advance. But a starting price, or a typical range, answers the question many visitors most want answered, and it means the enquiries you receive come from people who already know roughly what to expect.

Make the next step obvious and easy

Each page should have one clear thing for the visitor to do next, placed where they will see it without searching.

• Say what happens after they get in touch, such as how soon you reply and what the first conversation covers. Only promise a reply time you can keep, including during holidays.
• Offer the ways people prefer to contact you. Some want a form, some want to phone, and in many places a WhatsApp link is the easiest option on a phone.
• Ask only for what you need to reply. A name, a way to reach them and a short message is enough for many businesses. Extra required fields give people reasons to stop.
• Make phone numbers and email addresses tappable, so a visitor on a phone can use them in one step.

Check that the site is quick and works on a phone

Many of your visitors are likely to be on a phone, sometimes on a slow connection. A page that takes several seconds to show anything, or a menu that is hard to use with a thumb, loses people before they have read a word. Our free website health check tests speed and mobile use, among other things, in a few seconds.

Tell unsuitable visitors apart from a confusing page

A low number of enquiries does not always mean the page is failing. If many of your visitors arrive from searches for a service you do not offer, or from an area you do not cover, fewer of them will get in touch, and that's expected.

Search Console's Performance report shows the searches that bring people to each page. If those searches match what you do and where, and enquiries are still low, the page is the more likely cause. If they do not match, the page may need to be clearer about what you offer, so that search engines send you the right people.

Measure it in a way you will keep up

You do not need a complicated set-up. Two numbers, checked monthly, tell you much of what you need:

• how many enquiries you received, and where they came from
• how many visits your main pages received.

The first depends on asking. A short question on your contact form, such as how the visitor heard about you, with options including Google, AI assistants and recommendations, gives you information that analytics tools cannot. When you change something on a page, change one thing at a time and give it a few weeks, so you can tell what made the difference.

Where to start

1. Send a test enquiry today and follow it through.
2. List the five pages people land on most, and check each on your phone.
3. Add evidence and a clear next step to the weakest of them.
4. Ask new enquirers how they found you.

If you'd like help with any of this, our Site Help service makes fixes and improvements to existing Squarespace, Wix and WordPress sites. If the site needs more than that, our websites page explains how we build new ones.