5 mistakes small businesses make with their website (and the quick fix)

After looking at a lot of small-business websites, we can report that the same challenges keep coming up again and again. The good news? Almost all of them come down to details you can put right in an afternoon, without tools or budget you don't already have. Here are the five most common – and the quick fix for each of them.

Mistake #1: Contact details that are impossible to find

Visitors who want to contact you give up quickly if they have to search. We have seen websites where the phone number only exists in a PDF, where the contact page is hidden behind "About us", and where the only option is a message on social media that might get answered at some point. The customer who was ready to buy rings your competitor instead – not because they were better, but because they were easier to reach.

The quick fix

Put contact details visibly on every page – in the header or footer, ideally both – with phone number and email in plain text. Also create a dedicated contact form that lands in your inbox, and link to it from across the website. Getting in touch should require zero detective work.

Mistake #2: Copy written for yourself, not the customer

"We were established in 2009 and have a unique and holistic approach to quality." That's what it says. But the customer reading it is really wondering something entirely different: "What do I get? What does it cost? Can I trust you? How do I order?" Copy that is about you – instead of about the customer's problem – is one of the most common reasons visitors click on without doing anything.

The quick fix

Write what the customer is wondering, not what you want to tell them. Go through the site page by page and ask yourself: "What would a first-time customer wonder about here – and do they get the answer?" Swap industry phrases for concrete explanations: what happens when the customer gets in touch, what's included, how the order works. A good trick: ask a customer to read a page and tell you what they learned from it. The rest can probably be cut.

Mistake #3: Poor-quality images – or no images

Websites that are wall-to-wall text without a single image, or with a dark mobile photo taken in a basement, create more distrust than trust. Images do two important jobs: they show what the customer actually gets, and they prove that your business exists in the real world – with real people, real premises and real work.

The quick fix

A few good, genuine images beat a thousand generic stock photos. Use your phone in daylight and take photos of your work, your premises and yourself on the job. And if you have to choose between one genuine photo and ten bought stock photos: choose the genuine one, every time. Customers recognise the stock photographers from five other websites in the same week.

Mistake #4: No clear next step

Visitors are interested, they've read about what you offer – and then the page simply ends. No button, no call to action, no hint about what the next step is. Then the customer has to figure something out themselves, and most people choose to do nothing at all. Interest without a next step is just a visit.

The quick fix

Give every page one clear CTA – call, send a message or book. One, not seven: too many choices make people postpone. One clear button with the action you want ("Book an appointment", "Get a quote", "Call us") at the top of the page, and the same call to action again at the bottom, is enough for most pages. Give the button a colour that stands out from the rest of the page.

Mistake #5: The website that never gets updated

The copyright text says 2019. "This year's news" is from 2021. The opening hours applied before you moved. A website that is never touched sends a quiet signal: maybe not much happens here any more. That's unfair – the business may be thriving – but that's how many visitors perceive it.

The quick fix

Create a fixed routine: one update per quarter keeps it alive. Go through prices, images, opening hours and offers, and fix the copyright year while you're at it. Put it in the calendar as a recurring item – it takes under an hour, and the website looks alive instead of abandoned.

Good to know

Nobody has perfection from day one. Almost every website we see has at least one of the points above, and most have several. It's not dangerous – it's just uncorrected. What matters is not that your website was finished and flawless the day it was published, but that it gets a little better every time you look at it through the customer's eyes. Five mistakes mean five concrete things you can fix, one after the other.