7 web design mistakes that small businesses keep making

building a website is one thing. building one that actually works for your business is another. after reviewing hundreds of small business sites, the same issues come up again and again — not technical bugs, but design and strategy decisions that quietly drain conversions.

here are the seven most common ones, and what to do instead.

1. no clear call to action above the fold

when someone lands on your homepage, they should immediately understand what you do and what to do next. yet most small business homepages bury the call to action — "get a quote," "book a call," "shop now" — halfway down the page, if it appears at all.

the fix: every page should have one primary action you want the visitor to take. put it in the hero section where it's visible without scrolling. don't make people hunt for it.

2. walls of text nobody will read

it's tempting to use your website to explain everything about your business. resist this. web visitors skim. if they land on a paragraph-heavy page with no visual hierarchy, they leave.

the fix: use short paragraphs (2–3 sentences max), subheadings every 200–300 words, and bullet points for lists. your content should be scannable in 10 seconds.

3. stock photos that signal "generic"

the smiling white-collar worker, the handshake over a conference table, the laptop on a kitchen counter — these images are everywhere, which means they register as nothing. visitors have trained their eyes to skip stock photos.

the fix: real photos of your team, your workspace, and your actual work are almost always more effective, even if they're imperfect. authenticity builds trust faster than polish.

4. a mobile experience nobody tested

most small business owners design their sites on a desktop and check it once on a phone. but if 60% of your visitors are on mobile — and they probably are — a site that requires pinching, zooming, or horizontal scrolling is a serious problem.

the fix: test your site on at least three devices (ios phone, android phone, tablet). check every page, every form, and every button. if you're on wordpress, use a responsive theme you've actually tested properly.

5. contact information that's hard to find

this sounds too obvious to matter, but a surprising number of business sites hide their phone number in the footer, omit their address entirely, or bury the contact form under multiple clicks. for local businesses especially, this is a trust problem.

the fix: put your phone number in the header. if you're a local business, include your address on the contact page and in the footer. make it easy for people to reach you — that's the whole point.

6. no social proof on the page

potential customers want to know that other people have trusted you and had a good experience. testimonials, google review counts, client logos, before-and-after examples — any of these work. a site with none of them asks visitors to take your word for everything.

the fix: add two or three short testimonials to your homepage. they don't need to be elaborate — even a sentence and a name from a real customer adds credibility. if you have google reviews, embed your rating.

7. slow page speed on mobile

this one shows up in every conversation about website performance. a site that looks great on a fast wifi connection can be brutally slow on a phone with an average mobile connection. and since google's ranking algorithm uses mobile page speed as a signal, slow sites rank lower and lose visitors before they even arrive.

the fix: check your score at pagespeed insights. if you're below 70 on mobile, compress your images, reduce third-party scripts, and consider whether your hosting is adequate.

the common thread

all of these mistakes come down to the same thing: designing a website for how the business owner thinks about their business, rather than how a first-time visitor experiences it. the solution is to regularly look at your site with fresh eyes — or better yet, ask someone who's never seen it to find your phone number and book a service.

if you'd like a professional review of what's working and what isn't, nanushi offers assessments for small businesses across ottawa and canada.