Counting website enquiries: the number that matters

The number that tells you whether your website works is not visits. It is enquiries: phone calls, form messages, emails and texts from people who found you through the site. The simplest way to track them is to ask every new customer "How did you hear about us?", write the answer down in one place, and count once a week. Tools can help, but a notebook or a basic spreadsheet with honest answers beats a dashboard you never open.

Why visits are the wrong number

Website visits go up and down for reasons that have nothing to do with your business: bots, people looking for your competitor, someone checking your hours for the third time, a link shared in a far-off forum. A site with a thousand visits a month and two calls is doing worse than one with a hundred visits and ten calls.

For a local business, an enquiry is the moment the website did its job. Count that.

What counts as an enquiry

Decide this once, so every week is counted the same way. A sensible definition for most small businesses: a new person asking about your services, by any route, who found you through your website or Google.

Routes to count:

Phone calls, including ones from the call button on your site.
Contact form messages.
Emails to the address on your site.
Texts, if your site lists a number for texting.
Booking requests through an online booking link.
Walk-ins who say they looked you up first.

Do not count:

Spam and sales pitches from your contact form.
Existing customers calling about a current job.
Wrong numbers.

Step 1: ask everyone how they found you

This one habit gives you more truth than any tool. On every first call, and on every first email reply, ask:

"Can I ask how you found us?"

Then listen for the real answer, and if it is vague, ask once more:

"Google" — "Was that the map, or our website?"
"Online" — "Was it Google, Facebook, or somewhere else?"
"A friend" — that is a referral, worth counting too, even though it is not the website.

Keep the categories few, so they are easy to tick. For example: Google map, website, Facebook, referral, repeat customer, vehicle or sign, other.

Add the same question to your contact form as a simple dropdown: "How did you hear about us?" Make it optional, so it never stops someone from sending. Contact forms that people actually fill in has more on keeping forms short.

Step 2: write it down in one place

Use whatever you will actually keep up:

A notebook by the phone.
A spreadsheet on your computer or phone, such as Google Sheets or Excel.
Your job or booking software, if it has a "lead source" field. Many do.

A simple sheet with these columns is enough:

Date
Name
How they got in touch (call, form, email, text)
How they found you
What they wanted
Did it become a job? (yes, no, pending)
Rough job value, if you like

Step 3: let the free tools fill the gaps

Some enquiries slip through: the person who did not say, the call your assistant took, the form that went to a spam folder. A few free tools add a second view.

Your Google Business Profile. The "Performance" section counts calls made from your profile, requests for directions and clicks through to your website. You can see this month against last month. How your Business Profile and website work together explains where these numbers come from.

Your contact form inbox. Check where form messages go and that they actually arrive. Owners often find months of enquiries sitting in a forgotten inbox or a spam folder. Where do website contact form messages go walks you through finding out.

Your website builder's stats or Google Analytics, which can count clicks on your phone button and form submissions, if set up. Google Analytics for small business helps you decide whether that setup is worth it.

Your phone's call log. New numbers that called during business hours, especially right after a website visit, are often enquiries you forgot to note.

A word on call tracking numbers

Call tracking services give you a special phone number for your website or each ad, so every call to that number is counted. They work, but be careful:

Keep your main number on your Google Business Profile and directories. Changing it everywhere to tracking numbers can confuse Google about which number is really yours.
If you cancel the service, the tracking numbers stop working. Make sure you can keep them or replace them everywhere.
Your customers may save the tracking number and call it for years.

For most small businesses, asking "how did you find us?" plus the profile's call count is enough without a tracking service.

Look at the numbers once a week

Pick a regular time, such as Friday afternoon, and count:

How many new enquiries this week.
How many came from the website or Google.
How many became jobs.

Compare with the same week last month, and with the same month last year if your work is seasonal. Look for changes you can explain: a new page, a burst of reviews, a holiday, a broken form.

If enquiries from the website drop suddenly, check the basics on the same day: send yourself a test message through the form, tap the call button on your phone, search for your business name. A broken form or a wrong number on the site can quietly stop all of them.

What the number tells you

Steady enquiries, few jobs: the website brings people in, but something later loses them. Maybe prices, response time or the wrong kind of customer. Clearer service and price information on the site can help filter.
Few enquiries, many visits: people find the site but do not get in touch. The phone number may be hard to tap, the form too long, or the page not clear about what you do.
Few enquiries, few visits: people are not finding the site. Look at your Google profile, reviews and service pages.

What to do this week

Start asking "How did you find us?" on every new call and email.
Make a simple sheet with the seven columns above.
Add an optional "How did you hear about us?" field to your contact form.
Send yourself a test message through your form and confirm it arrives.
Open your Google Business Profile performance numbers and note this month's calls.

If you find people visit but rarely get in touch, you can see your site rebuilt first, with the phone button and form where a visitor's thumb expects them.