Work through these in order
A pet sitting site that gets visitors and no enquiries is almost never broken in an interesting way. It is usually failing one of six tests, and they are worth checking in this order, because the earlier ones cost the most.
Do the checking on your own phone, on mobile data, in a private window, as a stranger would.
1. You have not proved you are safe
This is first because it is the reason most sitting enquiries never get typed.
An owner is about to hand over a key. If the site does not state your insurance, your vetting checks, your pet first aid training, whether you have references, and what happens to the key while they are away, they will not ask. They will assume the answer is nothing and move to the sitter whose site says it.
Fix: one page, linked from the header, covering insurance, checks, first aid, references and key handling, in plain sentences. Then a short trust line on the home page above the fold, not buried at the bottom.
2. There are no prices
The second biggest leak. An owner planning two weeks away is working out a budget alongside the kennels quote and the cattery quote. "Contact for a quote" means they cannot compare you, so they compare the two who published.
Fix: prices per visit type. Cat visits, dog visits, small animals, overnights, house sitting, with duration and what is included. One honest line about what changes the figure, such as extra animals, medication or bank holidays. Editable by you, so it is still true next spring.
3. You are invisible where the owner lives
People search for a sitter with a place name attached. If your site names one town in the footer and nothing else, you are competing for the whole county and winning nowhere.
Fix: a page for each town and village you genuinely cover, each with something real on it rather than the same paragraph with the name swapped. Claim and complete a Google Business Profile with your service areas set, and keep collecting reviews.
4. The only way to reach you is a form
An enquiry form that says name, email, message is the wrong first step for a sitting client, in both directions. It gives you nothing to quote from, and it gives the owner no sense of progress.
Fix: two routes, both visible.
For new clients, a meet-and-greet booking with real dates and times. That is the appointment they want, it is free, and it commits nobody to a fortnight.
For existing clients, a clear link into your portal in Time To Pet, Pet Sitter Plus, Scout or Precise Petcare to request their dates, so regulars stop messaging you at bedtime.
If you keep a form as well, ask for the animals, the dates, the postcode and the visit type, so your reply can carry a price.
5. Nobody knows what a visit involves
An owner who has never used a sitter is imagining something vague. Thirty minutes, but doing what. Do you stay. Do you send anything. What happens if the cat is hiding, or the dog is sick, or there is a power cut.
Fix: a page per visit type explaining the sequence, plus a sample visit report showing the photos and notes that land on their phone. This is the single most reassuring thing you can publish, and almost no sitter publishes it.
6. It is slow, or it looks abandoned
A hero image that takes four seconds on a village signal, a copyright date from two years ago, an availability note about last Christmas. Each one says quietly that nobody is minding the business.
Fix: compressed images, no slider, hosting above the cheapest tier, and a care routine that keeps prices, areas and availability current.
The order matters
Fix one and two before you spend anything on advertising. A sitting site with no proof and no prices leaks every visitor you buy, so paid traffic just makes the leak more expensive.
Then three, which takes weeks to show. Then four, five and six, which are quick.
Check that it worked
Record enquiries, meet-and-greet bookings, portal clicks and call taps by page, so next month you can say which page produced the work rather than guessing. Look once a month for ten minutes.
And keep the one number that matters for a sitter: how many holiday enquiries turned into a meet-and-greet. That is where the business is won, and it is the number a website actually moves.
Where this sits
Proof, prices per visit type, area pages, meet-and-greet booking and a sample visit report are standard in a pet sitting business website we build, and the same diagnosis runs across the wider pet business websites we make. What the packages include is on pricing. If you only do one thing this week, write the key handling paragraph. It is the sentence the nervous owner is looking for.