The visitor wanted to contact you and could not find how

This leak is almost comic, and it is everywhere. A business spends heavily on being found, then puts the phone number in small grey text at the bottom of a page, behind a menu icon, on the fourth screen.

Have the agents build my site

Contact details should be visible on every page, not only the contact page, and the phone number must dial when tapped on a phone. If a stranger cannot reach you within about fifteen seconds of deciding to, you are losing enquiries that were already won, and none of them will tell you.

Why this happens to careful businesses

Nobody hides their contact details deliberately. It happens through a series of reasonable decisions: the design should be clean, the header should be uncluttered, the menu can collapse into an icon on small screens, and the contact page is one tap away in any case.

Each step is defensible and the result is a site where the owner knows exactly where everything is and a stranger does not. It is entirely invisible from the inside, which is why it survives redesigns.

The fifteen second test

Hand your phone to somebody who does not know the site, open a service page, and ask them to contact the business as if they needed the work. Then say nothing at all and count.

If they are still hunting after fifteen seconds, the leak is confirmed. Watch where they look first, because that is where your contact details should have been.

Where the details belong

The principle is that a visitor should never have to navigate in order to make contact. Wherever they are when they decide, the way to act should already be present.

  • In the header, on every page, as a tappable number on phones.
  • Within the text of service pages, at the point where somebody would decide.
  • At the end of every page, alongside the next step.
  • In the footer, with the full details including a real address.
  • In a small persistent bar on mobile for urgent services.

Make the details usable, not just present

A number that appears as plain text on a phone is a number somebody has to memorise, switch apps, and type. A meaningful share will not. It must be a link that dials on tap.

The same applies to an email address written as text in an image, an address with no map link, and a form with no indication of when anybody replies. Present is not the same as usable, and this leak lives entirely in that gap.

Say when you answer

A visitor who does not know whether anybody will pick up often decides not to try, particularly outside normal hours. A single line stating your hours, and what happens outside them, recovers those attempts.

If you cannot always answer, say what you do instead: that messages left in the evening are returned first thing, for instance. A promise you keep is worth more than a number nobody dares to call.

The trust side of contact details

Complete contact details do a second job beyond convenience. A real address, a real phone number and a named person are among the strongest signals that a business is genuine, and their absence is one of the things wary buyers notice first.

For local businesses there is a further consideration: the details on your site should match the details on your map listing exactly. Inconsistency between them quietly weakens both, and it is a common cause of confusion for customers who check both.

How Licheo handles contact

The conversion agent places the contact route on every page rather than only on a contact page, with the number tappable, and checks the whole path with one thumb before anything is published.

The local agent keeps the details consistent between the site and the map listing, since customers and search engines both compare them.

Part of a larger guide

This page is one part of Where the money escapes. The other parts:

Questions people ask

Where should my phone number appear on my website?
On every page: in the header, within the text where a decision is made, and at the end of the page. On phones it must be a link that dials when tapped, not plain text somebody has to copy out.
Is a contact page enough?
No. It requires the visitor to navigate at the exact moment they decided to act, and a share of them will not bother. Keep the contact page, and also make contact possible from wherever the visitor already is.
Should I show a physical address?
Where you have one, yes. A real address is a strong trust signal and it matters for local search. If you work from home and prefer not to publish it, state the areas you serve and keep the other details complete.
How do I test whether my contact details are findable?
Hand your phone to somebody who does not know the site, open a service page, ask them to contact the business, then stay silent and count. Beyond about fifteen seconds of hunting, you have found a leak.
Should I list opening hours?
Yes, and say what happens outside them. Visitors who do not know whether anybody will answer often do not try at all, especially in the evening, which is when a good share of enquiries are written.

Be easy to reach

Tappable number on every page, contact where the decision happens, and the whole path tested on a real phone before launch.

Have the agents build my site Read the full guide