What a website from 2009 is costing you
Your website does not have to be broken to hurt you. It only has to look like it belongs to another decade.
Here is the uncomfortable part: the customer who leaves because of your website will never tell you. No call, no e-mail, no form. They close the tab and open the next search result. You have no data on how many of them there were — which is exactly why most businesses do nothing about it. You cannot see what you lost.
What a visitor decides in three seconds
Nobody reads a website they have just opened. They scan it, and within a few seconds they answer three questions:
- Does this business still exist?
- Do they do the thing I need?
- Can I trust them?
The first one gets answered before you realise it. A latest-news item from 2019, a price list called
prices_2019.pdf, stock photography, a visitor counter in the footer. None of that is a lie. Together
it says: nothing has happened here in years.
And from the visitor's side that is a perfectly reasonable conclusion. If the business were doing well, it would have found time for the website. That inference is unfair to hundreds of good companies — and people make it anyway, because they have nothing else to go on.
Mobile is not a detail, it is the majority
Most people now look for a supplier from a phone, often at the moment something has gone wrong: a pipe burst, the heating stopped, the car will not start. That person has no patience and no free hand. They need to find a number and call it.
If your site has to be pinched and zoomed and the phone number is in the footer, you have just lost to a competitor who put the number at the top and made it tappable.
That is the cheapest thing to fix on an old site and the one with the largest effect. It does not require a new website — see First aid.
Speed costs you twice
A slow site is paid for twice.
Once with the visitor: every extra second is another chance for them to give up. And once with Google, where loading speed and page stability are among the ranking signals. A slow site is harder to find, so fewer people arrive — and more of the ones who do arrive leave.
What to actually do
The obvious answer is "we need a new website", and it is often the wrong one. Depending on the state of the site, there are three real paths:
- Fix the worst of it. Mobile, speed, phone number at the top, a working form, listings in the maps and directories. Five days, fixed price. The site stays as it is — it just stops driving people away.
- Rebuild it, keeping the content. When the business and the words are fine and the problem is shape and structure. Two to four weeks.
- Build a new one. When the existing site is not worth another hour of investment.
The cost difference between the first and third path is an order of magnitude. That is why I start with a diagnosis rather than a quote: without one I would be selling you something you may not need.
One thing you can do right now
Open your own website on your phone. Not on a laptop — on a phone, one-handed, the way a customer would. Try to find the phone number and call it.
If that takes more than two seconds, you have your answer.
For the longer version, send me your website address. You will have a concrete list within 48 hours.