Most small business owners have a vague sense that their website "seems fine" — but can't tell you whether it's generating enquiries, how many people visit it, or whether those visitors are actually finding it through Google. Without measuring, you're flying blind.
Here's how to know whether your website is genuinely working — and what to do when it isn't.
What "Working" Actually Means for a Small Business Website
Before diving into metrics, it's worth being clear about what success looks like. A website that's "working" for a local small business is one that:
- Attracts visitors who are searching for what you offer in your area
- Converts a reasonable proportion of those visitors into enquiries
- Builds enough trust that visitors are confident reaching out
Everything else — design awards, bounce rates, social shares — is secondary. The only metric that truly matters is enquiries generated.
1. Are You Getting Enquiries From Your Website?
This sounds obvious, but many business owners can't confidently answer it. When a new enquiry comes in, do you know how they found you?
Start asking every new customer: "How did you find us?" If none of them say "Google" or "your website," your site isn't generating leads — even if people are visiting it.
If you have a contact form, make sure you receive a notification every time it's submitted. Set up a simple spreadsheet tracking enquiry sources monthly. Within three months you'll have a clear picture of what's actually bringing in business.
2. Check Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool that shows you exactly how your website appears in Google search — which searches trigger your pages to appear, how many people see those results, and how many click through.
The key metrics to check:
Total clicks: how many people visited your site from Google last month. For a local business that's been doing basic SEO for six months or more, this should be growing.
Impressions: how many times your pages appeared in search results (even if no one clicked). High impressions with low clicks means your meta titles and descriptions need improving.
Average position: where your pages rank on average. Position 1–3 gets most clicks. Position 11+ (page two) gets almost none.
Top queries: the actual search terms people used to find you. Are these the terms you'd want to rank for?
If you haven't set up Search Console, it's free at Google Search Console. Add your site, verify ownership, and you'll start seeing data within a few days.
3. Set Up Google Analytics
Google Analytics (GA4) tells you what visitors do once they arrive on your website — which pages they visit, how long they stay, which device they use, and where they came from.
Key things to check:
Traffic volume: how many sessions per month? For a local business with basic SEO, 100–300 sessions per month is a reasonable baseline. Less than 50 suggests your site isn't being found.
Traffic sources: how are people arriving? "Organic search" (from Google) is the most valuable. "Direct" means they typed your URL directly. "Referral" means another site linked to you.
Most visited pages: which pages are getting the most traffic? If your homepage gets everything but your service pages get nothing, your internal linking or navigation may need improving.
Mobile vs desktop: what proportion of visitors are on mobile? For most local businesses it's 60–70%+ mobile. Does your mobile experience match that expectation?
4. Test the User Experience Yourself
Analytics tells you what's happening. Testing tells you why. Once a month, visit your own website as if you were a potential customer:
- Search for your service on Google — do you appear?
- Visit your homepage on your phone — is the experience good?
- Try to find your phone number — how many taps does it take?
- Fill in your contact form — does the confirmation message appear? Do you receive the email?
- Read your homepage headline — does it clearly say what you do and where?
You'll often spot problems immediately that you'd never notice from looking at your own site too often to see it clearly.
5. Check Your Page Speed
Use Google's PageSpeed Insights to test your main pages. Enter your URL and check both mobile and desktop scores.
Scores above 80 are healthy. Below 50 on mobile is a problem — it means your site is loading slowly enough to cause visitors to abandon before they've seen anything. Common causes include large images, poor hosting, excessive plugins, or no caching.
6. Look at Your Google Business Profile Insights
If you have a Google Business Profile (and you should — see what is Google Business Profile), the Insights dashboard shows you how many people found your listing, what searches triggered it, and what they did next (called, visited your website, or requested directions).
These numbers tell you how well your local search presence is working independently of your website. If you're getting high GBP impressions but low website visits, your listing might be doing most of the work — which means improving your website could significantly increase conversions.
What Good Performance Looks Like
For a local small business with basic SEO in place and a properly built website, healthy benchmarks look roughly like this:
- Organic traffic: 100–400 sessions/month after 6+ months of SEO
- Enquiry rate: 2–5% of organic traffic converting to an enquiry
- Google ranking: page one for at least 2–3 of your core local search terms
- Page speed: mobile score above 70 in PageSpeed Insights
- Enquiries: at least 2–5 new enquiries per month from the website
If you're significantly below any of these, there's work to be done.
What to Do If Your Website Isn't Performing
Start with the basics:
- Set up Google Search Console and Google Analytics if you haven't already
- Check whether you're appearing in Google for your core search terms
- Test your mobile experience
- Check your contact form works
- Ask new customers how they found you
If the data reveals a problem — poor rankings, low traffic, no conversions — the solutions vary depending on the cause. Poor rankings need local SEO work. Low conversions need design and content improvements. No visibility at all may require a new website build or a fundamental rethink of your online strategy.
For a detailed breakdown of why visitors might not be converting, see my website has visitors but no enquiries.
If you'd like us to take a look at your website and tell you honestly how it's performing, get in touch with NC Digital. We offer a free initial assessment for South Wales businesses.