9 Ways Your Website Is Killing Your Business
People go online to look for local businesses. In 2021, Visual Objects surveyed 500 consumers. They found that 76% of people search for a company online before visiting in person.
Without a website, you could lose thousands of dollars in potential sales. That said, a bad website can also hurt your business.
A lot can go wrong with a website. Large organizations dedicate specialized experts to support their web operations for a reason. As a small business owner, you're likely managing it alone. Some may have delegated this task to someone "good with computers." Few have an expert on staff.
How do you make a good website when you're doing it yourself?
It can depend on your audience and needs. It's easier to start by identifying what makes a bad website.
I see websites as a three-legged stool; the whole thing will collapse if one leg is weak or missing. Your website's legs consist of its technical infrastructure, your content, and the design.
I've identified three major problems for each leg. I'll expand on each in future blog posts, but for now, the nine pitfalls every website should avoid include:
- Long load time
- Bad mobile experience
- Security problems
- Broken links
- Low-quality content
- No search engine optimization
- Poor structure
- Outdated and amateurish design
- Low-quality images
Technical problems
Long load time
Every second your website takes to load, you lose more visitors. According to KissMetrics, 40% of people will abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
That's a significant loss of potential sales. But it gets worse.
An article in Forbes cites that 88% of online users won't return to a site after a bad experience. In other words, your slow website may have also cost you repeated future sales. But that's not all.
Google uses site speed as a ranking factor. Ranking is complex, but if everything else is equal, a fast website will rank higher than a slow one.
Site abandonment or bounce rate isn't a direct ranking factor. That said, it suggests your website has problems and isn't worth visiting. A poor user experience further lowers your rank.
The bottom line: make sure your website is as fast as possible. Tools like PageSpeed Insights can test your website and identify areas for improvement.
This is such an important topic that I had to dedicate an entire post to it. I explain why slow websites drive away customers and damage brands. It's a deeper analysis of why speed matters, what makes websites slow, and how to avoid or fix the common problems.
I do everything I can to optimize my websites as much as possible. Before adding scripts, my website got perfect scores in PageSpeed Insights. I aim to do the same for all my clients. Third-party scripts (e.g., Google Analytics) will drop the performance score, but they can be worth it.
Looks bad on mobile
Most visitors to your website are likely using their phone. According to StatCounter, in March 2025, 62.21% of people used a mobile device to access the Internet. When focusing on the United States, it's closer to a 50/50 split between mobile and desktop.
Regardless of the stats, your website must function and look good on people's phones. Google cares about the mobile user experience; if you want your website to rank well, you should too. To do this, ensure it's responsive and designed with many breakpoints.
Optimizing your website for smartphones engages users, makes Google happy, and wins customers. It takes more work than shrinking your website to fit on a phone screen. I cover this in depth in "Mobile-first matters: Optimize your website to rank higher and sell more."
You can check your website's responsiveness by opening it on your computer. Make sure you aren't in full-screen mode, and then drag the corner of the window to change the screen size. The layout and content should shift around in response to the changing window. If the design doesn't shift or looks bad at specific sizes, you have a serious problem.
Just as people leave slow websites, they'll bounce if it looks bad or is unusable on their phone. Fix formatting issues at all screen sizes, but pay extra attention to mobile.
I use two or three breakpoints for most sections on my websites. First, I style each component for mobile as the default view, then I'll add more styles for larger screens. Sometimes, mobile and tablet or larger suffice. Other times, I need to style mobile, tablet, and desktop separately.
I also check every design at various screen sizes multiple times throughout development. If anything looks off, I'll keep adjusting things until I'm happy with how it looks. Then I'll test at different sizes again to be confident I didn't break one of the other sizes.
Security problems
Security isn't optional. Every website needs to implement basic security measures. Collecting personally identifiable information and payment info makes this even more critical.
All websites must use the HTTPS protocol and install SSL/TLS certificates. Both measures encrypt data, protecting its integrity and people's privacy. In most cases, you'll set both up through your web host.
Additionally, if you use a platform like WordPress, you must stay on top of updates. If you don't, you're inviting hackers to attack your website.
Failure to secure your website can damage its reputation. It'll rank lower in search, and users may receive a warning message when navigating to it. Very few people will proceed after seeing such a message.
Every website I host uses the HTTPS protocol and SSL/TLS certificates. Security updates are a non-issue for my websites—they are 100% static and not on a platform like WordPress. While it is possible to attack a static website, it's immune to things like SQL injections. This makes it less vulnerable than its dynamic counterparts.
Content problems
Broken links
Have you ever clicked on a link, only to get a "404 page not found" error message? It's annoying. If you get too many on the same website, you might get frustrated by the poor user experience and leave.
There's no excuse to have a link to one of your pages 404ing. It looks bad, blocks crawlers, and signals that you don't update your website. Broken links to other websites are more forgivable, but still bad.
You need to check your website for broken links. If your website is small, you can do this by clicking every link. If you don't want to spend time doing a manual check, there are many free and paid tools to automate it. Google Search Console is a good free option.
I use Google Search Console for Neva Masquerade. It helps me understand how Google sees my website. I can also use it to identify potential problems beyond broken links. Its many reports can provide valuable information.
Low-quality content
A beautiful website can only carry you so far. You could design and code your website to perfection, but if the content sucks, it's worthless.
Poor content can take a few different forms:
- Spelling and grammar errors that challenge your professionalism and attention to detail.
- Lack of structure or organization that confuses readers and obscures your offer.
- AI-generated content that is bland, generic, and devoid of authenticity.
When you write, you must also consider why you're writing and who it's for. Your writing should also serve a purpose. You're wasting your time if it doesn't help your customer or further a business goal.
Develop a content strategy to give your writing purpose. You should also set a schedule to audit all your pages to keep them current and relevant. Rewriting old content is a great way to give it new life and boost your website's search results.
I do all this on my website. I use Grammarly to catch errors and the free Hemingway Editor to keep my writing simple and easy to read. If I need help with ideas, research, or fact-checking, I'll use Gemini; otherwise, I don't use AI for my content.
Ignoring SEO
Search engine optimization, or SEO, improves your website's position in search engines. You need SEO to rank in search results; you want to rank on the first page in one of the top three spots.
Most of the other problems in this list will hurt your SEO. Some other things to watch out for include:
- duplicate content,
- keyword stuffing,
- ignoring user intent,
- poor title tags and meta descriptions,
- incorrect header tags,
- neglecting internal links and backlinks,
- and so much more.
SEO can be a full-time job. It's a lot of work, but ignoring it isn't an option. You can funnel traffic to your website with paid ads, but your traffic will dry up if you stop. SEO is how you get organic traffic without burning through money.
I do all the on-page SEO I can for every website I touch. Every developer should do on-page SEO by default. I'd consider that a red flag if they charge extra for it. As for keyword research and other SEO tasks, I use Semrush, but Ahrefs is another good option.
Design problems
Bad structure
People can't buy from you if they can't find what they want. Shallow navigation, orphaned pages, and illogical links make your content hard to find.
Your navigation labels should be clear, intuitive, and match your customers' mental models. Users should be able to navigate to every page on your website without knowing its exact URL. Your link paths should follow a pattern and identify what the page is about.
Give some thought to your website's organization. If you can, ask your customers where they would think to go to find x—their responses may surprise you.
Shallow navigation isn't a concern for a basic 5-page website. But, if I'm working on a website with 15, 20, or more pages, I'm mindful about creating hierarchy and content pillars. I also always follow best practices for URLs and add breadcrumb trails to all page headers.
Outdated or amateurish design
The aesthetic-usability effect asserts that people are more forgiving of attractive designs. That doesn't mean you should focus on form over function—you need both. But it does stress the importance of good design.
People are more willing to ignore minor inconveniences if they like the design. If they think it's ugly, every minor annoyance will bother them, and they'll think it's garbage. They'll think this even if the ugly version works better than the pretty one!
Don't lose customers to your competition because their website looks nicer than yours.
I'm mindful of design principles and best practices. Using Neva Masquerade as an example, I designed it with:
- 4 colors (blue, brown, pink, and black/white) with tints and shades of each to add variety;
- 3 fonts with clear rules around when and how to use each one;
- 1 texture/pattern used throughout the website and no more than twice on a single page;
- 1 icon style throughout the website with consistent stroke widths;
- 4px grid to create uniform alignments, proportions, and sizes; and
- 100px padding for the top and bottom of every section.
Every aspect of a design should be a conscious and intentional choice. That's why I like to get to know my clients, it lets me make good choices that suit them and not my personal tastes.
Low-quality images
Images convey information faster than words. Bad photos will send the wrong message.
When selecting images, consider how you'll use them. Favor information-carrying images over decorative ones. Your pictures should be more than eye candy; they should add value.
Always start with quality, high-resolution images to maintain a professional appearance. You should also use a similar editing style to keep a consistent look. For example, if you favor dark and moody photos, throwing in a lone light and airy one will look jarring and out of place.
Resize images to an appropriate size. Don't set a 4500px-wide image as a 150px thumbnail. Use a photo editing tool to resize it to 300px and save it in a web-optimized format like .webp.
Always add alt text to your images. Alt text helps people who can't see the image understand its purpose on the page. Don't use alt text to stuff in keywords that are irrelevant to the image.
Neva Masquerade is a cat-themed brand, so my imagery features cats. I add more consistency to them by applying a sepia-toned overlay to every image. This creates a recognizable, branded look. For my branding clients, I will also develop an appropriate set of rules for their brand's imagery.
I always crop and resize images for my websites to optimize them for mobile and larger screens. Then, I export them as .webp to keep the page as light and fast as possible. When I write alt text, I consider the photo's purpose and include that in the description. For example, my cat images often convey concepts or emotions, so I make that part of the alt text.
Conclusion
Websites aren't easy. They are so much more than throwing text and multimedia on a page, and calling it a day. Whether you hire someone or run your website yourself, you should be aware of these nine pitfalls. If you can avoid them, your website will be an easy-to-use and effective marketing tool.
