4 Reasons Your WordPress Website Isn’t Converting

Why your website are not getting conversions, learn how to identify and top reasons why your WordPress website isn't converting

By Claudio Pires
Updated on October 3, 2022
4 Reasons Your WordPress Website Isn’t Converting

Converting visitors into leads should be at the top of your priority list regarding website maintenance. The number of conversions you achieve indicates your success as a WordPress website. In this post, you’ll learn how to identify the reasons why your WordPress website isn’t converting.

But what do you do if that number drops drastically and no one wants to become your lead? What could be behind the poor reception of your content and services if you are doing what you have always done for your audience? Let’s look at some of the most indicative reasons for low conversion rates with WordPress-based websites.

4 Reasons Your WordPress Website Isn’t Converting

1 – Lack of responsive design

Most people have abandoned desktop computers and laptops in favor of smartphone devices. Studies have shown that 80% of people prefer using mobile platforms such as Android and iOS to browse the internet, check their emails and make purchases.

Every site administrator must consider building a website that caters to those needs. Some of the most important aspects of responsive design include:

  • Short-form content that can easily be read on a smaller screen
  • Easy-to-spot navigation buttons that make site browsing faster and more comfortable
  • Optimized images and multimedia content that doesn’t require fast internet connections

Not doing it properly may be one of the reasons why your website is not converting.

2 – Poor SEO optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a pivotal role in your conversion rates. This is pretty straightforward – people like to see high-quality website content. Google has ensured that “high-quality content” is synonymous with “SEO.”

An astonishing 93% of internet traffic comes from search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The keywords you choose to use in your content are often the deciding factor in whether or not you will gain more traffic and conversions. Try using Google Adwords to see which words are trending in your niche.

Use those words to craft your titles, subheadings, and paragraphs for better SERP exposure. If you don’t know how to do it yourself, you can always turn to outsource for your content creation needs. Services such as Flash Essay can help you write optimized and high-quality content that can easily convert visitors into leads. They work with professional writers with academic education in their respective fields, so hiring one (or more) of them is a no-brainer. As a result, it may be the reason why you are not getting conversions on your website.

3 – Website navigation issues

Reasons Your WordPress Website Isn’t Converting
4 Reasons Your WordPress Website Isn’t Converting

Sometimes it all comes down to web design issues with your navigation and layout. Conversion rates depend on how you deliver information to your potential audience. If your site is easy to navigate and has a clear, informational structure, your conversion rates will reflect on that. What are some of the most glaring indicators of poor website navigation and design?

  • Too many ads, popups, and prompts that constantly keep your visitors from reaching actionable information
  • It takes too many clicks to get to your articles, products, or purchase pages may be why you are not getting conversions
  • Your web design solution is outdated, lacks current trends, and wasn’t updated in several years
  • There is a general lack of information on your landing page, the about page, and contact info page, respectively

4 – No calls to action reasons why WordPress website Isn’t converting

The best way to design your website for high conversion rates is to generalize your audience. While it may seem counterintuitive, it’s necessary to get a clear picture of what you need to do. For example, calls to action represent one of the critical ingredients of quality content on any website, WordPress or not.

You must tell your audience what to do regarding the content they just saw or read. Calls to action include social media icons at the end of each page, actionable “orders” at the end of each article, accurate purchase and subscription buttons, etc. An alarming study has shown that 70% of businesses simply lack calls to action on their websites. With that stat in mind, it’s easy to see why many brands report low conversion rates or are not getting conversions at all.

The more reason you give your audience to do something about your content, the more likely they will do it. Being passive about whether or not you want them to become a part of your customer base will often result in them leaving the website entirely.

5. Your website is slow and for those reasons it is not converting

We’ve covered the importance of website loading speed and provided tips on speeding up your website. If your website doesn’t load quickly, your visitors will leave and probably won’t visit again shortly.

Many factors can slow down your website, such as:

  1. A website that is not mobile friendly
  2. Broken link
  3. Don’t use cache
  4. Code issues / Too much code
  5. Unoptimized image
  6. Flash and Java may be why you’re not getting conversions
  7. Bad web hosting

You can check your current website speed with Page Speed ​​Insights. It must be dealt with if your site takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Research shows that most users leave websites that take longer than 3 seconds to load quickly.

6. You’re not targeting the right person

Is your website based on a general theme? Then you are not on the right track. Many such sites are not based on any particular niche. Because of this, website owners try to reach all types of audiences and then isolate their entire audience. This simply doesn’t work.

That means you’re either writing for the wrong or a large audience, which you shouldn’t. Whatever it is, if your targeting is imprecise, it can negatively impact your conversion rate. Content, branding, marketing, and website design should target niche audiences. Proper market research will help you find and understand your audience and why you’re not getting conversions.

7. You don’t guide your users through the buyer’s journey reasons why WordPress website Isn’t converting

Don’t you give your visitors a reason to buy your product? Don’t just say, “This is my product/service. This is how you buy it.” It sounds simple to the visitor. Such messages don’t arouse visitors’ interest in your product. You should help buyers with the following questions:

  • What is a product/service?
  • Why should I buy your product/service?
  • What if I am not interested in purchasing?
  • Are there videos, infographics, or ebooks for more information?

Not all visitors to your website are ready to buy. Today’s buyers are astute and one step ahead. They have complete information about your business at their fingertips. You need to pay close attention to the information they find and how you solve their problems to avoid them getting into your competitors.

Test, Change, Analyze

This is the extra reasons section why your website might not be converting leads. Measure, measure, and keep measuring. If you don’t measure, you’re guessing and not making any progress.

The problem most website owners face is that they either don’t track their website traffic or track their metrics but don’t check them. Some people know they should follow up but aren’t sure what to look for or do with the results.

Well, you should always start with your goals. You can then identify which key metrics will help you measure your progress toward those goals. Once you start counting, you can improve these metrics; find out what’s working and not, then tweak and tune them.

Long-term conversion (Conclusion)

Conversion Rates
Conversion Rates

Increasing your conversion rates is a long-term investment. Once you get back to your feet, you should pay attention to what your audience likes and dislikes. This will give you a good indication of what content to cut out and what to focus on in the future to keep converting.

Don’t stop monitoring your site’s activity just because you are going through a reasonable period. Chances are that your industry’s trends will change overnight, and you will have to quickly make up for that shift in interest to remain relevant.


Claudio Pires

Claudio Pires is the co-founder of Visualmodo, a renowned company in web development and design. With over 15 years of experience, Claudio has honed his skills in content creation, web development support, and senior web designer. A trilingual expert fluent in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, he brings a global perspective to his work. Beyond his professional endeavors, Claudio is an active YouTuber, sharing his insights and expertise with a broader audience. Based in Brazil, Claudio continues to push the boundaries of web design and digital content, making him a pivotal figure in the industry.