Over the past year, we've built a scanner that grades local business websites on how well they convert visitors into enquiries. Not SEO. Not page speed. Conversion (converting website visitors into prospects who actually contact you) – the thing that actually puts money in your account.

As of this week, we've scored 35,529 sites. Plumbers, electricians, cleaners, pest control, dentists, landscapers, accountants – real small businesses across Australia, the UK, the US, Canada, Germany and France. Every site scored against the same 10 conversion factors.

Nobody else has a dataset like this. SEO tools will tell you about backlinks and meta tags. We wanted to know something different: when a potential customer lands on your website, does the page actually convince them to pick up the phone?

Here's what 35,000 sites taught us.

The Average Local Business Website Scores a D+

The mean score across all 35,529 sites is 64.1 out of 100. The median is slightly higher at 67.7. In letter grades, that's a D+ – not failing, but a long way from good.

Here's how the grades break down:

• F (below 60): 22.3% of all sites
• D (60–64): 12.6%
• D+ (65–69): 25% – the single most common grade
• C (70–72): 20.3%
• B- or above (73+): 10.3%

Read that last line again. Fewer than one in ten local business websites score above a B-. And only 35 sites out of 35,529 scored 80 or above.

This isn't a sample of terrible websites. These are real businesses with real customers. Many of them are spending money on Google Ads driving traffic to these pages. The sites work. They load. They have a phone number somewhere. They're just not very good at converting the visitor who's already there.

What We Actually Measure

Our scanner evaluates 10 conversion factors. These aren't arbitrary – they're the things that research and testing consistently show affect whether a visitor enquires or bounces. In plain terms:

1. Headline quality – Does the first thing a visitor reads make them want to keep reading? Or is it your business name in large font and nothing else?
2. Value proposition – Can a visitor tell within five seconds what you do and why they should care? Most sites assume people already know this. They don't.
3. Unique selling proposition (USP) – What makes you different from the three other businesses they have open in tabs right now? "Quality service" and "family owned" don't count.
4. Call to action – Is there a clear, visible next step? And is it something better than a tiny "Contact Us" link buried in the navigation?
5. Trust signals – Reviews, certifications, guarantees, real photos of your team. Anything that makes a stranger think "these people are legitimate."
6. Urgency – Is there any reason to act now rather than bookmark the tab and forget about it? This doesn't mean fake countdown timers. It means giving people a reason to call today.
7. Hook and visual engagement – Does the page grab attention above the fold? Or does it look like every other template site in your industry?
8. Imagery and design – Real job photos versus stock images. Clean layout versus cluttered. Professional versus amateur.
9. Offer clarity – Can a visitor understand exactly what they'll get if they contact you? Or is it vague waffle about "solutions" and "tailored approaches"?
10. Industry appropriateness – A pest control site needs different things than an accounting firm. We score whether the site matches what visitors in that specific industry expect to see.

Every factor is scored independently, then weighted into the overall grade. A site can be strong on design but weak on trust signals. Strong on CTAs but missing a value proposition entirely. The combination is what determines whether someone enquires or clicks back to Google.

Where the Scores Actually Cluster

Here's the raw distribution by score range:

• 0–39: 354 sites (1%)
• 40–49: 2,485 sites (7%)
• 50–59: 7,425 sites (20.9%)
• 60–69: 17,793 sites (50.1%)
• 70–79: 7,437 sites (20.9%)
• 80+: 35 sites (0.1%)

Half of all sites sit in the 60–69 range. We call this the "deadly middle."

The Deadly Middle

A site that scores 30 knows it has a problem. The owner can see it. Visitors can see it. It's obviously not working. These are the easiest sites to improve because the gap is visible.

A site that scores 63 is a different story. It looks fine. It's got a decent logo, reasonable layout, a phone number in the header. The owner built it on Squarespace or had a web designer put it together a few years ago. It doesn't look broken.

But it's quietly losing 20–40% of the enquiries it should be getting.

The problem with a D+ site is that nothing screams "fix me." The business owner looks at it and thinks it's fine. Their mates look at it and say it looks good. Meanwhile, a competitor down the road with a 75 is converting the same traffic at nearly double the rate – and the D+ business never knows why their phone rings less.

This is the group we find hardest to reach. Not because they're dismissive, but because they genuinely don't know the problem exists. Their site works. It just doesn't work well.

Country-by-Country: Who Builds Better Websites?

We score sites across six countries. Here are the averages:

• Australia: 67.8
• United Kingdom: 65.9
• United States: 65.6
• Germany: 64.9
• Canada: 64.3
• France: 64.1

Australian sites lead, but not by a dramatic margin. A few points of context here: our scoring methodology was originally calibrated against Australian businesses, so there may be a slight home-ground advantage baked in. It's also possible that Australian SMBs invest more in their web presence on average – the market is smaller and more competitive for local search, which might push quality up.

The more interesting takeaway is how narrow the range is. Every country's average falls between 64 and 68. The problems are universal. It doesn't matter whether you're a plumber in Perth or a roofer in Portland – the same conversion mistakes keep showing up.

What Separates a 75 from a 55

This is the part people find surprising. The difference between a mediocre site and a good one isn't usually a complete redesign. It's typically two or three specific things.

When we look at sites that score 55 and compare them to sites that score 75, the same gaps come up repeatedly:

Missing or weak calls to action

The single biggest conversion killer in our dataset. A 55-scoring site might have "Contact Us" in the nav bar and a phone number somewhere in the footer. A 75-scoring site has a prominent, specific call-to-action (CTA) above the fold – "Get a Free Quote" or "Book Your Inspection" – with a button that looks like a button and supporting copy that tells the visitor exactly what happens next.

No trust signals above the fold

A 55-scoring site mentions reviews on a dedicated testimonials page that nobody visits. A 75-scoring site shows a Google rating, a review count, and two short customer quotes right there on the homepage. Trust displayed where people actually see it, not hidden three clicks deep.

Generic value propositions

A 55-scoring site says "Quality [trade] services in [city]." A 75-scoring site says "Same-day emergency plumbing – fixed price, no call-out fee, licensed and insured." One tells the visitor something useful. The other says nothing at all.

None of these require a new website. They don't even require a web developer in most cases. They require someone to look at the page through the eyes of a stranger who has three other tabs open and is deciding who to call.

The Factors That Tank Scores Most

Across all 35,529 sites, the conversion factors that score lowest on average are:

1. Urgency – Almost nobody gives visitors a reason to act now. This is consistently the weakest factor in our dataset.
2. USP – Most businesses can't articulate what makes them different. Their website reflects that.
3. Offer clarity – Visitors can tell you're a plumber but not what specific services you offer, what the process looks like, or what they'll get when they call.

The factors that score highest are imagery/design (most modern templates look decent) and industry appropriateness (most sites at least get the basics of their sector right). In other words, sites tend to look okay on the surface – the problems are in the persuasion layer underneath.

What This Means If You Run a Local Business

Statistically, your website probably scores somewhere in the low-to-mid 60s. It probably looks fine. You probably haven't thought about it much since it was built.

And it's probably costing you one or two enquiries a week that you'll never know about.

Those visitors don't send you a message saying "I visited your site but wasn't convinced." They just go back to Google and call someone else. Over a year, at even modest job values, that's tens of thousands of dollars in work that went to a competitor – not because they're better at what they do, but because their website did a slightly better job of converting the same visitor.

The good news is that the gap between a 55 and a 75 is almost always fixable in an afternoon. It's not a design problem. It's a messaging problem. Stronger headline, specific call-to-action, visible trust signals, clear offer. Those four changes alone account for most of the score difference we see in our data.

If you're curious where your site sits, you can find out in about 30 seconds. Our scanner runs the same analysis we used on those 35,529 sites – same 10 factors, same scoring. It's free, it's instant, and it might explain why your phone doesn't ring as often as it should.