When someone finds your business online, your website has a few seconds to convince them to stick around. A lot of the time, something gets in the way before they ever reach out. The problem is those friction points aren’t always easy to spot when you’re on the inside looking out. Here’s a rundown of the most common ones and what to do about them.
Clarity in Messaging
The words on a website matter. Within seconds of landing on your website your potential customers need to be able to tell if your page is what they are looking for. Clear messaging that positions what you offer and to who is critical to a website being effective. If it doesn’t clearly say exactly what the page is about, then how are your visitors and search engines supposed to know?
Missing Calls To Action
When a potential customer is ready to move forward, what is the next step? Should they fill out a form, call you, show up in person, what does that action look like?
A call to action is just showing them what the next step is and enticing them to take that step. It’s best practice to have a single consistent action that gets repeated multiple times across the page. Places like the hero section, footer, and contextually inside the information on your site. The larger site can have multiple calls to different actions, but it’s best to keep it to one specific action per page.
Having your first call to action above the fold in the hero section can also improve conversion rates. A good CTA is often an engaging visual element (photo, video, illustration, etc), captivating heading that sums up the core offering, short persuasive paragraph that reinforces you are the right choice, and a button to click or form to fill out. It can also be scaled down to contextual in page links where makes sense within the informational copy.
Buried or Missing Contact Info
This may seem obvious, but don’t make it hard to get ahold of your business. Keep your phone number, email, and business address easy to find, like on your contact page. Even if the primary conversion path is not calling or emailing your business, you don’t have to feature it but your phone and email should still be easy to find in a logical place. Hiding your contact info in place of a form without an alternative option can put a trust barrier between you and some types of customers. Make it easy for them to choose the communication channel that they are most comfortable with or makes the most sense for what they are looking for.
Lack of Search Engine Optimization
It’s amazing how many websites haven’t even done the basics for search engine optimization. If you want to show up for a specific search query you have to make it clear to search engines and users what the web page is about and have enough authority to compete in results against other pages targeting the same search query. If you want to show up for a query like “Cleveland Website Design” or “Recording Studio in Cleveland” for example, then it needs to say that on the page, in site titles, etc. Generally speaking, you should have a page per keyword you want to rank for, a single page cannot rank for everything.
Meta Titles
The meta title is the page title that appears in search results as well as on the browser bar title display. Your page title should contain the primary keyword you want to rank for with that page. So if you want to rank for “Production Sound Mixer” the meta title might be “Production Sound Mixer & Sound Recordist | Henri Rapp” You’ll notice in that example there are two keywords targeted, “Production Sound Mixer” and “Sound Recordist”, this works because the two search terms are synonymous, where trying to have multiple keywords that are different dilutes the clarity of what the page is about.
Headings
Humans don’t read linearly on websites, they bounce around and skim to find what they are looking for. Headings give humans and search engines alike the context to what the page and page section are about. Your H1 or Heading 1 is your most prominent heading that acts as the page title visually in the page. Much like the meta title, it should contain the keyword the page is targeting. Your H2 through H6 headings are subheadings that give context to the individual sections within the main topic the page is about. So for this article the H1 is “Common Website Issues & How To Fix Them”, and “Clarity In Messaging” & “Lack of Search Engine Optimization” are H2s for sub sections of the main topic and this section “Headings” is an H3 heading. It’s a hierarchical system for content structuring. Your sub headings while they may contain the primary keyword naturally, they should also contain related keywords that show relation to the primary keywords.
Thin Text/Content
Generally speaking, search engines reward sites with higher quality & more thorough content. While images & videos are great for captivating attention, text based content is great for giving more context to your page, providing important information, and demonstrating you are the right fit for your customers.
Image Alt Text
Alt text gives words to images, and therefore gives image context to search engines or people. Alt text is also used for accessibility of images with people who have visual disabilities. The alt text should simply be a description of what the image contains visually, and for SEO purposes should contain related keywords to topic and section of the page where the image is used. So if you are trying rank for “Production Sound Mixer” an image alt text could be something like “Production Sound Mixer Henri Rapp booming Snoop Dog for NBC”.
Poor Site Structure
Having a logical hierarchy for page urls on your website that use keywords are another way to show context and relevancy. A url like “https://creative.henrirapp.com/insights/blogging-why-how/” is better than “https://creative.henrirapp.com/pageid=2582”.. If you have a page that is a sub page of another page, structure the URLs that way.
Having A Site Map
A sitemap is a database of all the pages on your website. It acts as a directory for search engines to look at and know what pages exist on your website. Once you generate an XML sitemap, you can submit it to places like Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools.
Poor Internal Linking
Internal links and the anchor text shows internal relevance. Websites are choose your own adventure experiences, and contextual links facilitates visitors clicking into pages to gain more context about sub topics. If you have links that naturally contain your keywords for the linked page contextually it’s good for both user experience and relevance in SEO.
Lack Of Blog
A blog gives you a place to publish content that doesn’t necessarily make sense to be a dedicated stand alone page, like company news, informational articles, lead magnets, and more! Publishing blog content is one of the simplest ways to grow visibility, build trust, attract traffic, and build authority, helping your domain rank for terms that lead to sales. Done right, a blog becomes an asset that works for you long after it’s published. The more useful content you publish, the more momentum you build. Good quality content creates a snowball effect that drives compounding traffic and builds authority.
Visual Identity Issues
A website doesn’t need to win design awards, but it does need to look like someone gave a damn. Inconsistent fonts, clashing colors, random spacing, and stock photos that have nothing to do with your business all erode trust before a visitor reads a single word. Your website’s design should reinforce your brand identity and create visual consistency across every page. If you don’t have a defined brand identity with a logo, color palette, and font pairings, that’s the place to start. Without that foundation, your site is going to feel scattered no matter how good the content is.
Accessibility matters more than most business owners realize. Poor contrast ratios make text hard to read, body copy below 16px forces people to pinch and zoom, and sites overloaded with animations can cause real issues for people with motion sensitivities. If it’s not serving a purpose, it’s a distraction.
If your website doesn’t work well on a phone, you’re losing more than half your potential visitors before they even see what you offer. Mobile responsive design isn’t optional, it’s a baseline expectation from both users and search engines. Google will ding your rankings if your site isn’t mobile friendly, so a site that looks great on desktop but breaks on a phone with overlapping text, tiny tap targets, and horizontal scrolling is actively working against you.
Positioning & Clarity
Your website needs to answer five questions fast: who you are, what you do, how you do it, why you do it, and who you do it for. If a visitor can’t figure that out within seconds of landing on your site, they’re gone. And if search engines can’t figure it out, you’re not showing up in the first place. Too many businesses try to be everything to everyone and end up saying nothing to anyone. Being specific about what you offer and who you serve isn’t limiting, it’s how you stand out. A plumber who serves residential customers in Akron is easier to find, easier to trust, and easier to hire than a “full service solutions provider.” Say what you do in plain language, make it obvious who it’s for, and let the specificity do the heavy lifting for both your visitors and your rankings.
Generic Photography & Stock Photos
Stock photos make your website feel generic and impersonal. When visitors see obviously staged imagery that has nothing to do with your actual business, it creates a disconnect that undermines trust before your content even gets a chance. Your website should look like your business. Professional photography of your real locations, team, products, and work gives visitors an authentic look at who they’d be working with and what to expect. You don’t always need a full professional shoot either; a well-lit photo from a decent phone camera carries more authenticity than a polished stock image that doesn’t represent anything real about your company.
Slow Loading Times
If your website takes more than a few seconds to load, a significant percentage of visitors will leave before they see a single thing on it. It doesn’t matter how good your content or design is if people never stick around long enough for it to render. Slow loading times come from a handful of common culprits: poor hosting, images that haven’t been compressed or resized, no caching, no CDN, bloated code, and too many unoptimized scripts loading on every page. The good news is that speed optimization is a solvable problem. Proper image optimization, server-side and browser caching, a CDN to serve assets from servers closer to your visitors, and quality hosting will get your site loading fast.
On the hosting front specifically, cheap shared hosting isn’t just slow, it’s a security liability. I learned that lesson firsthand years ago when a site I had on shared hosting got hit with a malicious redirect that would intermittently send visitors to a spam site. It was subtle enough that I didn’t catch it immediately, and by the time I did, I ended up paying a developer $600 to find and remove the injected code. That experience is a big part of why I only build on quality managed hosting now, and why hosting and maintenance plans are a core part of what I offer my clients. Good hosting paired with regular software updates, daily backups, and proper security measures means you’re not gambling with your website’s performance or safety.
Bad Navigation
Your website’s navigation should make it obvious where to go and what to do. If visitors have to hunt for basic pages like your services, contact info, or portfolio, they’re not going to bother. Keep your main navigation simple, logical, and limited to the pages that matter most. Every site should have a clear path from landing on the page to taking an action, whether that’s filling out a form, making a call, or requesting a quote. If your navigation is cluttered or missing pages that visitors expect to find, you’re creating friction that costs you business.
No Location Targeting
If your business serves specific geographic areas and your website doesn’t mention them, you’re invisible to local search. People search with location intent all the time, things like “web designer in Cleveland” or “plumber near Akron,” and if your site doesn’t have content targeting those terms, you’re not going to show up. Location landing pages built around the cities and regions you serve give search engines the context they need to surface your site for local queries. It’s one of the simplest SEO wins most small business websites completely overlook.
No Social Proof
People want to see proof that you’ve done the work before they trust you with theirs. If your website doesn’t showcase past projects, client testimonials, recognizable names you’ve worked with, or behind the scenes looks at your process, you’re asking visitors to take your word for it. That’s a hard sell. A portfolio, a few honest testimonials, or even a client logo grid gives potential customers the confidence that you’re the real deal. Social proof does the selling that your copy can’t do on its own.
Launch & Abandon
Too many businesses treat their website like a one-and-done project. It launches, everyone celebrates, and then it collects dust for years. Menus stay outdated, old locations and pricing linger, services that no longer exist are still front and center, and the blog section has one post from 2019. An outdated website doesn’t just look neglected, it actively works against you. Visitors who find incorrect information lose trust fast, and search engines favor sites that are regularly updated with fresh relevant content. Your website is a living breathing entity that should evolve alongside your business. If your offerings change, your site should reflect that. If you’re not publishing new content, your competitors who are will keep building authority & rankings while yours stays flat or declines.
