Stop Guessing Why Customers Leave Your Website

Why Most Brisbane Business Owners are Flying Blind

I was sitting down with a landscaper in Chermside a few weeks ago. He was frustrated. He’d spent a decent chunk of change on a new website, and while he could see people were visiting the site, his phone wasn't ringing anywhere near as much as it should have been.

"I don't get it," he said. "The site looks great. It’s got photos of our best decks and retaining walls. But people just land on the home page and then vanish."

Most business owners are in the same boat. You look at your numbers and see 500 visitors a month, but only 5 phone calls. You start wondering: Is the site broken? Are my prices too high? Or are people just tyre-kickers?

Stop guessing. You wouldn't run a physical shopfront without occasionally looking at the floor to see where people are walking, or noticing if they keep tripping over a rug at the entrance. Your website is no different.

Today, I’m going to show you how to look "over the shoulder" of your website visitors—legally and ethically—to see exactly why they aren't buying from you. We’re going to compare the two best ways to do this so you can stop wasting money and start getting more bookings.

The Two Ways to See What’s Happening

When we work with Brisbane businesses at Local Marketing Group, we generally use two types of "digital binoculars" to figure out why a site isn't performing.

1. The "Birds-Eye View" (Heatmaps): This shows you where the crowds are going. It’s a map of your website that glows red where people click and blue where they ignore everything. 2. The "Security Camera" (Session Recordings): This lets you watch a video replay of a single person moving their mouse, scrolling, and clicking on your site.

Both are incredibly powerful, but they tell you very different things. If you want to see exactly which clicks turn into cash, you need to understand how to use both.

Approach 1: The Birds-Eye View (Heatmaps)

Imagine you own a cafe in Bulimba. A heatmap is like looking at your floor tiles at the end of a busy Saturday and seeing exactly where the scuff marks are.

If the scuff marks are all around the menu board, but nobody is standing near the pastry cabinet, you know your cakes aren't grabbing attention. On a website, if the "red hot" areas are all over a photo that isn't clickable, but your "Call Now" button is cold and blue, you’ve got a massive problem. People are trying to interact with the wrong things.

The Pros: It’s fast: You can look at a heatmap for 30 seconds and immediately see that nobody is scrolling down far enough to see your testimonials. It proves points: I’ve used these to show business owners that the massive, expensive video they insisted on putting at the top of the page is actually being ignored by everyone.

The Cons: It lacks the "Why": It shows you that people aren't clicking the button, but it doesn't tell you if the button is broken or if the text on it is just confusing.

The Pros: It finds bugs: You’ll see if your website looks weird on an older iPhone or if a pop-up is blocking the "Book Now" button. It shows frustration: You can literally see the mouse shaking or "rage clicking" when something doesn't work.

The Cons: It’s time-consuming: You can’t watch 1,000 videos. You have to pick a handful and look for patterns.

Real-World Example: The Plumber and the "Invisible" Quote Form

We worked with a plumbing business near Morningside. They had a great-looking site and were paying for ads, but the "Request a Quote" form was empty.

We put these tools on their site for a week. When we looked at the heatmaps, we saw something weird: Everyone was clicking on a small icon of a wrench next to their services, thinking it was a link. It wasn't.

Then we watched the recordings. We saw that on mobile phones—which is how 80% of their customers found them while dealing with a burst pipe—the header of the website was so big it covered half the screen. When the customer tried to type their name into the quote form, the keyboard popped up and completely hid the "Submit" button.

People were literally trying to give this guy money, but the website was physically stopping them. We fixed the header, moved the button, and his enquiries doubled overnight without spending an extra cent on ads. This is why it’s vital to stop wasting money on ads before you know your site actually works.

Which Approach Should You Use?

If you’re a busy business owner, you don't have time to play detective every night. Here is my honest advice on how to handle this based on your business stage.

If you’re just starting out (or have low traffic):

If you’re established (and getting steady traffic):

What Most People Get Wrong

Most people think that once a website is built, it’s finished. It’s not. A website is a salesperson that never sleeps, but if that salesperson is accidentally insulting every customer who walks through the door, you need to know about it.

I see so many Brisbane businesses spend $5,000 on a fancy design but $0 on checking if it actually works. They focus on the colours and the logo rather than the user's journey.

Another big mistake is ignoring privacy. When you start recording what people do on your site, you have a responsibility to keep that data secure. You don't want to be recording people's credit card numbers or passwords. It’s a small but critical step to keep customer data safe while you’re trying to improve your sales.

Is This Going to Cost a Fortune?

No. That’s the best part. There are tools like Microsoft Clarity which are completely free, or Hotjar which has a very generous free version.

You don't need a degree in data science. You just need to be curious about why people aren't calling you.

What should you do first? 1. Install a tool: Get something like Microsoft Clarity on your site today. It takes five minutes. 2. Wait a week: Let it collect some data from real Brisbane locals visiting your site. 3. Look at the "Dead Clicks": Look for where people are clicking on things that aren't links. This is the easiest win. 4. Watch 5 mobile recordings: Most of your customers are on their phones while waiting for a coffee or sitting on the bus. See if your site is actually usable on a small screen.

The Verdict: Stop Guessing and Start Seeing

In the end, marketing isn't about magic or "the algorithm." It’s about people. If you make it easy for people to find what they need and contact you, you will win. If you make it hard, they will leave.

Heatmaps and recordings take the guesswork out of the equation. Instead of saying "I think the website is okay," you can say "I know the 'Book Now' button is too small on an iPhone."

If you’re tired of wondering why your website isn't bringing in the leads you expected, or if you want someone to do the heavy lifting and just tell you what needs to be fixed, we can help.

At Local Marketing Group, we specialise in helping Brisbane businesses turn their websites into high-performing sales machines. We don't care about "pretty" sites; we care about sites that make the phone ring.

Ready to get more customers from your website? Contact Local Marketing Group today and let’s see what’s really happening under the hood of your business.