The mistakes I find on almost every small business website

The expensive ones

These cost you real enquiries, usually without you ever finding out.

• A contact form that does not sendBreaks after a plugin update or a hosting change and fails silently. Every enquiry vanishes. Test yours today. See turning visitors into enquiries.
• No phone number on the homepageMany people want to ring rather than type. Making them hunt loses a share of them at the exact moment they had decided to act.
• A five second load timeMost visitors on mobile data will not wait. They will also not come back. Covered in site speed.
• Unusable on a phoneSince most traffic is mobile, this is not a minor issue — it is most of your audience. See mobile and responsive design.
• No indication of pricePeople assume expensive and leave. A range or a starting figure keeps them engaged.

The credibility ones

These do not stop anyone using the site. They just make you look less trustworthy than you are.

• A copyright date from years agoImplies the business may not still be trading. It is one line of code.
• Stock photography of strangersInstantly recognisable and actively counterproductive. See building trust.
• Vague marketing language"Quality solutions for your needs" describes nothing. Say what you actually do.
• No HTTPS padlockBrowsers warn visitors that your site is not secure. Certificates are free.
• Broken links and missing imagesReads as neglect and invites doubt about your standards generally.

The findability ones

These stop people arriving at all, which makes them hard to notice.

• Every page sharing one titleSearch engines rely on titles to tell pages apart. Identical titles waste your best signal.
• An unclaimed Google Business ProfileFor a local business this is often the single biggest missed opportunity. See local SEO.
• Text trapped inside imagesSearch engines cannot read it, and neither can screen readers. See accessibility.
• No internal linksPages that nothing links to are barely discovered. See navigation and structure.
• A rebuild with no redirectsChanging every URL without redirects discards years of accumulated ranking. See technical SEO.

Common questions

Which of these should I fix first?

Test your contact form, then check your load time on a phone. Those two cover the faults that cost the most and are least visible from the inside. Everything else can be worked through in order of effort afterwards.

Can I fix these myself?

Several, yes. Updating the copyright year, replacing stock photos, adding your phone number and writing proper page titles need no technical skill. Speed problems and broken forms usually need someone who can get into the code or the hosting.

How do I know if my site has these problems?

Work down the list on your own site, on your phone, on mobile data. Then run it through PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse for the technical items. Between them you will find most of what is there.