Why isn't my landing page converting? How to find out

When a landing page doesn’t convert, it’s almost always one of four things: the measurement counts wrongly, the wrong visitors arrive, the page doesn’t deliver what the ad promises, or the path to the enquiry is too hard. You find out which one in exactly that order, from measurement to the form. Rebuild the design straight away and you often fix the wrong thing, and afterwards you don’t know whether it helped.

I usually check landing pages together with the ad account behind them, because many “page problems” turn out to be a problem with the ad or the measurement. This article is the diagnosis. What makes a good landing page in general is covered in What is a landing page?.

Is your measurement counting correctly?

This is the first question, because it’s the one most often overlooked. A page that supposedly doesn’t convert sometimes brings enquiries that nobody counts. The other way round, some accounts count clicks on the phone number or page views as conversions, which hides the fact that hardly any real enquiries come in.

Here’s how to check it in a few minutes:

1. Send a test enquiry through the page yourself, ideally from your phone.
2. Check whether it arrives in your inbox and whether it shows up as a conversion in Google Analytics and in the ad account.
3. For last month, compare the number of enquiries in your inbox with the number of conversions in the ad account.

If the two numbers are far apart, fix the measurement first, not the page. In Germany there’s another factor: anyone who declines in the cookie banner isn’t captured by tags (small pieces of code that send data to Google or Meta). So part of the gap is normal. How to check the measurement step by step is in the conversion tracking health check.

Are the right visitors reaching the page?

A good page can’t win over the wrong visitors. Someone searching “build a patio roof yourself” won’t hire a contractor, however good the page looks.

In Google Ads, the search terms report shows which searches actually triggered your ads. Read all of it for the last 30 days. If job searches, how-to guides, advice questions or places outside your area show up there, that’s the first lever. You can exclude unsuitable terms right there.

In Meta Ads the question is a different one: whom does the ad reach, and what does it promise? An ad that leads with a discount brings visitors who want the discount, not necessarily your offer.

Also look at the conversion rate by source for the same landing page in Google Analytics. If the page converts reasonably for search visitors and hardly at all for visitors from another campaign, the problem lies in that campaign, not on the page.

Does the page deliver what the ad promises?

The visitor clicked on a specific promise and wants to find it again at the top of the page. Someone who clicks “bathroom renovation at a fixed price” and lands on a home page with the company history is quickly gone.

Google assesses exactly that as part of Quality Score. The component is called “landing page experience”, and according to Google it reflects how relevant and useful your landing page is to people who click your ad (Google Ads Help: Quality Score).

Do the simple test: show the ad and then the top part of the page to someone who doesn’t know your business. After a few seconds, can they say what’s on offer, for whom, and what the next step is? If not, that’s your problem. The free landing page check gives you a first assessment of this: headline, call to action, trust signals and mobile readiness.

Where exactly do visitors drop off?

Now the question is at which point visitors leave. For that you need events for the individual steps: page viewed, form started, form submitted. In Google Analytics 4 you build a funnel exploration from them in the explorations tool (Google Analytics Help: Explorations).

The pattern tells you where to look:

• Hardly anyone scrolls or clicks: the top of the page doesn’t convince, or the visitors don’t fit.
• Many start the form, few submit: the form is too long, asks for too much too early or doesn’t work on mobile.
• Submissions come in, but no jobs: the page promises something different from what you sell, or it doesn’t pre-qualify.

Session recordings show what visitors really do. Microsoft Clarity does this for free, though in Germany only with consent. I’ve seen recordings where a banner covered the call button on mobile. In the report, it looked like a page nobody calls.

Is the page fast and usable on mobile?

Most local ads are clicked on a phone. So check your page on your own phone, on mobile data and not on the office Wi-Fi.

For speed, Google sets clear limits with the Core Web Vitals. A page counts as good if the largest element loads within 2.5 seconds (LCP), the page responds to input within 200 milliseconds (INP) and the layout barely shifts (CLS of 0.1 or less), each measured at the 75th percentile of page loads, separately for mobile and desktop (web.dev: Web Vitals). You can see your values for free in PageSpeed Insights.

Then usability: can the phone number be tapped? Is the most important button visible without scrolling? Does the cookie banner cover something people need? Does the right keyboard open on mobile for phone and email fields?

Is the form or the offer the problem?

If measurement, visitors, message and technology are fine, the offer itself remains. Three questions help here:

• Does the visitor know what to expect? An approximate price, a process or a timeframe takes away the fear of first contact.
• Is the hurdle appropriate? For a call-back, a name and phone number are enough. For a quote in the five-figure range, a few questions about the project are fine, and they help you too.
• Are there reasons to trust you? Genuine reviews, photos of your own projects and a complete imprint.

How much this can matter is shown by the website relaunch for Zitberg Überdachungen: since May 2026, a configurator with an instant price estimate leads into the enquiry. In July 2026, recorded enquiries were around 8 a day instead of 2 before, at a 52 % lower cost per enquiry.

Checklist: the diagnosis in the right order

1. Send a test enquiry and check whether it arrives in the inbox, in Analytics and in the ad account.
2. Compare enquiries in the inbox with conversions in the ad account for the same month.
3. Read the search terms for the last 30 days and exclude what doesn’t fit.
4. Compare the page’s conversion rate by source and campaign.
5. Put the ad and the top of the page side by side: is the promise kept?
6. Build the funnel: page viewed, form started, form submitted.
7. Test the page on your own phone on mobile data, and check the Core Web Vitals in PageSpeed Insights.
8. Weigh form fields, price information and trust signals against the value of the job.

After that, change only one thing at a time and measure before and after. Otherwise you won’t know what worked.

Conclusion

• Check the measurement first, then the page. Some “bad” pages are simply counted wrongly.
• Wrong visitors are a campaign problem. The search terms report shows them to you.
• The top of the page must deliver what the ad promises.
• A funnel with events shows where visitors leave, and recordings show why.
• Mobile, speed and the form decide at the end whether interest becomes an enquiry.

Your page gets clicks but no enquiries? The free landing page check takes the first look. If the page needs to be new or fundamentally different, Landingpages & Funnels (in German) describes how I build pages that turn clicks into usable enquiries. What to tackle first in your case is something you and I can work out in a free intro call. Book a free intro call.

FAQ

What’s a good conversion rate for a landing page?

That depends heavily on the industry, the offer and the source. A comparison with your own earlier numbers says more than someone else’s average. Reference values by industry are in the Google Ads benchmarks tool.

Should I start an A/B test straight away?

Only once measurement and visitors are right and enough enquiries come in for a difference to be visible at all. The A/B test calculator works out how many visitors you need.

Can it be the loading time even though the page loads fast for me?

Yes. On office Wi-Fi on a new computer, almost every page loads fast. Your visitors often come via a phone on mobile data. So check the mobile values in PageSpeed Insights and test it yourself when you’re out and about.