I have a site but it doesn't sell: the cause is usually not the design

Most messages I get start like this: “We have a site but it doesn't sell, we want to redo it.” In almost every case the first thing I say is the same: wait, let's look first. Because building a site from scratch is expensive and puts your current place in search at risk — and the problem rarely requires throwing the site away.

1. Are visitors coming or not?

This is the first distinction, and a surprising number of businesses don't know the answer. There are two completely different problems:

• Few visitors. Then the problem isn't the site but outside it: advertising, content, social media, search.
• Visitors come but don't buy. Then the problem is on the site, and you need to look at the four points below.

Without measurement in place you can't make this distinction, and every intervention you make is a guess. Setting up measurement is half an hour's work and the start of everything.

2. Has the product's question been answered?

Open the product page and ask: would someone reading this page have to call me? If so, the page is incomplete — and that person usually doesn't call, they just leave.

I learned this the hard way in my own business. My paint pages said “water-based acrylic, 100 ml”. The things customers asked were: does it work on glass, does it crack when dry, does it need varnish on top, does it smell, can a child use it. I knew every answer, but none of them was on the page, because they seemed obvious to me.

Your product has a list like this too. Write down the five questions customer service gets most; all five probably belong on the product page.

3. Are the trust signals in place?

Someone in Türkiye about to buy from a site they don't know looks at a few things, and none of them is aesthetic:

• Is there a real address and phone number?
• Is the return policy clearly written?
• Is the delivery time clear, or does it say “as soon as possible”?
• Have other people left reviews?

If one of these is missing, it no longer matters how beautiful the site is. Especially with reviews, don't be late: starting to collect reviews from day one is easy, collecting them retroactively two years later is very hard.

4. How long is the checkout?

Visitors who reach the cart and leave cost you the most: you paid for their ad, won their interest, and lost them at the last step. Places to look:

• Can people buy without signing up?
• How many screens does it take?
• Does the shipping fee turn up as a surprise in the cart?
• Is filling in the form on a phone a torment?

The automatic email that calls back someone who left their cart belongs here too. It is the cheapest way to make the ad money you already paid work a second time, and a surprising number of sites don't have it.

5. What happens on a phone?

Most of your traffic comes from phones, but the site is designed on a desktop and checked on a desktop. By the time I noticed my own site dropping to a black screen and crashing on an old Android phone, a fair amount of time had passed. A site that doesn't open is a site that doesn't exist.

So when do you need to rebuild from scratch?

There are cases where it really is needed: the platform can no longer carry the load, the brand has changed completely, your product structure doesn't fit the site (say you have hundreds of variants and the theme can't cope), or the site is so old it can't be used on a phone.

But “it doesn't sell” alone isn't reason enough to rebuild from scratch. Look at the five places above first. Most of the time you find things that can be fixed within two weeks, and that money works much harder in advertising or content.