We audit a lot of small business websites. The ones that aren't working rarely look broken. They usually look fine. They just have small, fixable problems that are quietly turning visitors into bounces. Run through this list — if more than two land, it's time for a refresh.
1. It takes longer than three seconds to load on mobile
Open your site on a phone, on mobile data, not on your home Wi-Fi. Time it. If you can count slowly to four before the page is usable, you've lost roughly half of new visitors before they've seen anything.
Common causes: huge unoptimised images, too many plugins (WordPress), heavy themes, a hosting plan that's overstretched. All fixable.
2. The homepage doesn't say what you do in plain English
Look at your homepage and ask: would a stranger know exactly what you sell within five seconds? Not what your "mission" is, not what your "values" are. What service or product they can buy from you. If the answer needs explanation, the page doesn't work.
3. The phone number is hidden (or worse, missing) on mobile
For most small businesses, the phone is still the highest-intent enquiry channel. If your number isn't tap-to-call, isn't in a sticky header, and isn't on every page, you're sending people back to Google to find a competitor whose number is easier to see.
4. You don't show any prices, even starting prices
Owners worry that publishing prices scares people off. The opposite is true: hiding prices scares off the people who don't want to "have a conversation" before they know if you're remotely in their budget. "From £X" is enough; you don't need a full price list.
5. The site hasn't been updated in two years
Copyright date 2023. Latest blog post 2022. "What's new" page that's nothing of the kind. Both Google and visitors notice. A stale site signals an absent owner, even if the business is busier than ever.
6. You're invisible on Google for the obvious searches
Open an incognito tab and search for "[your service] in [your town]." Where are you? If you're not in the first page of results, and not in the map pack, you're missing the customers who are actively trying to find you. Usually this is a local SEO issue, not a website issue per se — but it's almost always fixable.
Our pillar on local SEO for small businesses walks through the diagnostic order.
7. The contact form has 12 fields and asks for your life story
Name, email, phone, message. That's four. Maybe one more if you genuinely need it. Every extra field cuts completion rates measurably. We've seen forms with 15 fields converting at 0.5% rebuilt as 4-field forms converting at 7%. Same traffic, fourteen times the enquiries.
So what now?
Two of these (slow site, hidden phone) you can fix this afternoon. The others usually need a proper sit-down with whoever maintains the site. The good news is that fixing four out of seven meaningfully changes the number of enquiries a site brings in — often within a month.
If you'd like us to look at your site and give you a straight answer on what's worth fixing, the contact page is open. And the pillar guide, the complete guide to small business websites, walks through what good looks like more broadly.