5 Common Website Mistakes for Small Businesses and How to Fix Them

Let's chat!

Jan 30, 2024

Your website should be doing more than just sitting there and acting pretty. It should explain what you do, build trust, and turn visitors into customers. But for many growing businesses, that’s just isn't happening.

As a designer with over 12 years of experience in UX and branding, I’ve seen the same website mistakes show up again and again. They’re not catastrophic but they are quietly costing you leads, sales, and growth. The good news? Most are easy to fix once you know what to look for.

Here are the most common ones I see, and what you can do to improve them.

1. Unclear Value Proposition

You have 3-5 seconds to explain to the visitor why they are here*

You have seconds to to convey your value proposition. You have seconds to convince your visitor to stay.

If your homepage leads with vague statements like “Empowering innovation through connection” or “Solutions that grow with you,” it may sound impressive, but it doesn't clearly communicate what your business offers. This lack of clarity forces visitors to search for information, and many will likely just leave.

Tips to capture attention quickly

Use clear headline: State what you offer or solve, right away. Don't use fluffy marketing language.
- e.g. “Custom bookkeeping for startups”, “Interior design for growing dental clinics”
Use strong visuals: Use attention-grabbing images or graphics.
Improve load times: Slow sites lose visitors. Ensure your value position loads quickly to lock them in.

Clarity over cleverness always wins. Ensure that your value proposition is front and center, enabling visitors to understand your offerings within seconds.

Feeling overwhelmed? We got you.

You didn’t start your business to become a web expert so if fixing your site feels like just another thing on your plate, we’ve got you.

Book a call today

2. Poor Navigation

74% of people are more likely to return to a site that is easy to navigate*

You might be too close to your business to notice how confusing your website really is. Navigation should feel intuitive, like you’ve anticipated their next question. Complicated menus, broken links, no logical flow between pages and lack of search functionality make it hard for users to find what they need.

Do a quick test: can a new visitor find everything they need to hire you in under 3 clicks?

Tips to improve navigation:

Simplify navigation - Restrict your main navigation menu to 5–7 essential items to avoid overwhelming visitors
Use plain language - Don't use insider language when labelling your navigation links
Add cross-linking - Link pages that are closely related to ensure the visitor has all the information at their finger tips and they don't need to go hunting.
Search bar - Add a search bar for improved user experience (only if it works though, or it may cause more frustration)
Add breadcrumbs - Breadcrumbs show the viewer the site structure so they can easily navigate back to where they can from if they get lost

3. Lack of Mobile Optimization

Over 63% of website traffic comes from mobile devices*

We all know people use their phones constantly, but it’s still surprisingly common for business websites to look broken on mobile. Buttons are too small, text runs off the screen, and images are cut off. All of which create friction and lowers trust in the viewer. Did you know? Mobile-optimized websites see a 20% increase in conversion rates*

Tips to improve your mobile experience:

Test and refine - Check your mobile site on your browser by simply dragging the edge of the page and making it smaller
Touch targets - Ensure your touch targets are big enough for large hands. It should be at least 44px in height and width.
Improve visual hierarchy - Revise font and image sizes on mobile so it renders the same effect on mobile

4. Slow Load Times

A 1-second delay in mobile load time can reduce conversions by 7%*

We live in an age of short attention spans. If your site is slow to load viewers will bounce and if they leave once, they’re unlikely to return. Slow load times hurt your credibility, your user experience, and even your SEO rankings.

How to improve your load times:

Compress your images and videos - You can try TinyPNG
Limit animations - Remove unnecessary scripts

5. Too Much Information

Cluttered pages can cause conversion rates to drop by up to 95%*

I see this again and again, many businesses throw everything under the sun onto their homepage. They leave textbooks for their viewers and this very quickly overwhelms visitors. When everything is loud, nothing stands out.

Tips to not overwhelm the viewer:

Trim content - Ask yourself what is the key action or message you're trying to communicate?
Use progressive disclosure - Guide the viewer through information using accordions or sectioning up content with clear titles.
Use icons and bullet points - This will allow the viewer to skim and choose what they want to read.

This is just the start

Make your website work harder for you. These are some of the most common website issues but they’re far from the only ones. From weak visual hierarchy to unclear CTAs to inconsistent branding, there’s often a lot more costing you conversions.

If you want a full picture of what’s working (and what’s not), Design Notepad Studio offers practical website audits for growing businesses that want to fix weak spots, boost performance, and turn visitors into customers.

Book a call

*References: