7 Mistakes Small Businesses Make with Their Website

Having a website is a good start. But a bad website can do more harm than good. If visitors leave your website within 3 seconds, it's not doing much for you.

Here are the 7 most common mistakes I see on small business websites — and how to fix them.

1. No clear call-to-action

Visitors land on your website and then... what should they do? Call? Fill in a form? Request a quote?

If that's not clear within 5 seconds, you've lost them. Make sure there's a prominent button at the top of every page telling visitors what the next step is.

2. Not mobile-friendly

Over 60% of your visitors come via smartphone. If your website doesn't work well on mobile — text too small, buttons too close together, horizontal scrolling — you immediately lose the majority of your visitors.

Test your website on your own phone. If you find it frustrating, your customers do too.

3. Slow load times

Google has shown that 53% of mobile visitors leave if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Three seconds. That's all.

Common causes of slow websites:

• Uncompressed images
• Too many plugins (especially with WordPress)
• Cheap shared hosting
• Heavy scripts and animations

4. Outdated design

Your website is your business's digital business card. If the design looks like it's from 2010, that reflects on your business. People associate a modern, clean design with a trustworthy and professional company.

5. No or poor contact information

It sounds simple, but I see it surprisingly often: contact details that are hidden, not clickable on mobile, or simply missing.

Make sure your phone number, email, and address are visible on every page — preferably in the header and footer.

6. No SSL certificate

If your website starts with "http://" instead of "https://", browsers show a "Not Secure" warning. That scares visitors away, even if your website is otherwise fine.

An SSL certificate is now available for free and should be standard.

7. No SEO basics

A beautiful website that nobody can find has little use. The basics of SEO aren't complicated:

• Every page has a unique title and meta description
• Use headings (H1, H2, H3) to add structure
• Mention your location and services in your text
• Ensure fast load times and mobile-friendly design
• Add alt text to your images

Recognize one or more mistakes?

Don't worry — most of these problems are relatively easy to fix. Sometimes a website refresh is all that's needed.

Get in touch for a free, quick check of your current website. Or calculate what a new website costs.