Many websites lose inquiries before anyone reads the first sentence

A website can look good, have good copy and still bring in hardly any inquiries. Often the problem comes before the first sentence: in the seconds while the page loads, and in the first screen someone gets to see on their phone.

What happens in those first seconds has been studied well. And for Germany, there are current numbers that show how many websites fail at it.

The first seconds decide whether someone stays

Microsoft Research studied how long people stay on web pages across more than 200,000 pages. The Nielsen Norman Group sums up the result like this: many people leave a page after 10 to 20 seconds, and the first ten seconds or so decide whether someone stays. Those who get past that hurdle often stay much longer.

On a slow page, part of that time is spent waiting. In 2017, Google used a model built on bounce and conversion data to estimate how load time affects mobile pages. If it goes from one to three seconds, the probability of a bounce increases by 32 %; at ten seconds, by 123 %. These are model values, not measurements of your site. But the direction is clear.

Almost one in three websites is too slow on mobile

Google measures how fast and stable websites load for real visitors in the Chrome browser. The three most important metrics are called Core Web Vitals:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): How long does it take until the largest piece of content is visible? Good means 2.5 seconds or less.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): How quickly does the page respond to a tap or click? Good means 200 milliseconds or less.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Does the content jump around while loading? Good means a value of 0.1 or less.

I analyzed the public data from the HTTP Archive, which compiles these measurements for hundreds of thousands of websites. In September 2026, 69.2 % of the almost 587,000 websites covered passed all three metrics on mobile for users in Germany. So almost one in three failed. Worldwide, it was nearly one in two.

The good news: Germany has improved, from 56.5 % in March 2024 to 69.2 % in September 2026. The most common bottleneck is the first metric. Only about 80 % of websites show their main content fast enough on mobile, while for responsiveness and stability it’s almost 90 %.

One caveat: the data only covers websites with enough visits in Chrome. Many small business websites don’t appear in it at all. You can still check how your own site performs in two minutes, more on that below.

What’s on the first screen gets seen

Once the page has loaded, the first screen decides. In an eye-tracking study by the Nielsen Norman Group, 57 % of viewing time went to the area visible without scrolling, and 74 % to the first two screens. Everything below gets read far less often.

For a website that’s supposed to bring in inquiries, that means the first screen has to answer three questions. What do you offer? For whom? And what should I do now? A nice picture with a generic slogan answers none of them.

An example: instead of “Welcome to Miller’s” above a photo of the workshop, the top says “Accident damage and paintwork in Leipzig. Estimate by the next working day.” Below it, a button: “Report damage”. After two seconds, it’s clear what this is, who it’s for and what happens next.

Five checks for your website

All you need is your phone and a browser.

1. Measure the load time

Enter your address in PageSpeed Insights. Right at the top it shows whether your site passes the Core Web Vitals for real visitors. If it doesn’t have enough visits for that, the tool only shows a lab test. Pay particular attention to the LCP value for mobile devices.

2. Open your site on the go

Not on the office Wi-Fi, but on mobile data, ideally with a weak signal. That’s how many of your visitors experience the site. Count how long you wait until you see something useful.

3. Look only at the first screen

Without scrolling: is it clear what you offer, for whom, and what the next step is? Show the page to someone who doesn’t know your business and ask after five seconds what it’s about.

4. Set one clear next step

A button with a concrete action, such as “Request an appointment” or “Get a quote”, is easier to find than five equal links. It belongs on the first screen and repeats further down.

5. Shorten your form

Only ask for what you really need for a first reply; everything else can be cleared up in conversation. There are hardly any reliable numbers on this for contact forms, but there are for online shops: according to the Baymard Institute, the average checkout has 11.3 form fields, although 8 would usually be enough. 17 % of the US shoppers surveyed name a checkout that’s too long or complicated as a reason for abandoning a purchase.

The most common brakes on mobile

On 76 % of mobile websites, the largest element on the first screen is an image, according to the HTTP Archive’s Web Almanac 2025. So that one image often decides the LCP value. These four brakes are the usual suspects:

• Images that are too heavy. 83 % of the images that determine a website’s LCP are still JPG or PNG, only 11 % WebP. According to Google, WebP images are 25 to 34 % smaller than comparable JPGs at the same quality. An image that’s only as large as it’s displayed saves even more.
• The most important image loads last. If the hero image only appears through a slider, an animation or a script, the browser waits for nothing. The largest image on the first screen should load right away and with priority.
• Third-party scripts and fonts. Chat widgets, tracking, cookie tools and fonts from other servers each cost time. Every one of them should earn its place.
• A sluggish server. If the server responds slowly, the page loses time before anything loads at all. Cheap hosting and bloated site builders are the most common reasons.

Each of these brakes can be fixed, usually without touching the design. What matters more is the decision to take load time and clarity as seriously as the design.

If you want to know where your website loses inquiries, I check it in my website audit: with measurements, a rating across seven areas and a fix list sorted by impact. And if you’re thinking about a new site anyway: this is how I build websites and landing pages.

Sources

1. HTTP Archive (2026): Core Web Vitals Technology Report, Chrome UX Report data, own analysis, as of September 2026. cdn.httparchive.org
2. web.dev: How the Core Web Vitals metrics thresholds were defined. web.dev
3. An, D. (2018): Find out how you stack up to new industry benchmarks for mobile page speed. Think with Google. business.google.com
4. Nielsen, J. (2011): How Long Do Users Stay on Web Pages? Nielsen Norman Group. nngroup.com
5. Liu, C., White, R. W. & Dumais, S. (2010): Understanding Web Browsing Behaviors through Weibull Analysis of Dwell Time. SIGIR 2010. microsoft.com
6. Fessenden, T. (2018): Scrolling and Attention. Nielsen Norman Group. nngroup.com
7. Scott, E. (2024): Checkout Optimization: 5 Ways to Minimize Form Fields in Checkout. Baymard Institute. baymard.com
8. HTTP Archive (2026): Web Almanac 2025, Performance chapter. almanac.httparchive.org
9. Google for Developers: An image format for the Web (WebP). developers.google.com
10. web.dev: Optimize Largest Contentful Paint. web.dev