10 Website Mistakes That Lose Customers (and How to Check Them Yourself)
Written by the Dizayn team
Key takeaways
- Google rates loading as good when the main content appears in 2.5 seconds or less, measured at the 75th percentile of visits. Plenty of small business sites miss that on phones.
- The US has 65.2 million Hispanic residents. If your site is English-only, some of them leave without ever contacting you.
- Body text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background to be readable, per the WCAG standard.
Why is my website not getting customers?
There are two different problems, and you should know which one you have before changing anything. Either visitors aren't arriving (Google isn't showing you, or barely is), or visitors arrive but nobody contacts you (the site doesn't convince them or makes contact hard). Search Console answers the first; testing your own site on your phone answers the second.
In Google Search Console, look at your impressions and clicks. If impressions are close to zero, start with mistakes 9 and 7. If you get visits but no calls or messages, start with mistakes 1 through 6.
1. Is your site slow on phones?
A slow site loses people before they read a single line. Google measures page experience with three metrics called Core Web Vitals: the main content should show within 2.5 seconds (LCP), the page should respond to a tap within 200 milliseconds (INP), and it shouldn't jump around while loading (CLS of 0.1 or less).
How to check: enter your address in PageSpeed Insights and look at the mobile tab. If the Core Web Vitals assessment says it failed, you have work to do.
The fix: compressed, correctly sized images, fewer plugins and third-party scripts (chat widgets, pop-ups, trackers nobody looks at), and hosting that isn't the cheapest plan available.
2. Can people call or WhatsApp you with one tap?
On a phone, nobody wants to copy a number by hand. If your phone number is an image or plain text, or the button is buried at the bottom of the page, a lot of people simply go back to Google and tap the next result.
How to check: open your site on your phone and count the taps it takes to call you. It should be one or two.
The fix: a call button and a WhatsApp button visible on the first screen, with the phone number as a tap-to-call link. If your customers speak Spanish, make the prefilled WhatsApp message Spanish too.
3. Are your Spanish-speaking customers landing on English-only pages?
Spanish is the language of 61.1% of people who speak something other than English at home. If your business serves customers in Spanish but your site never says so, they don't know they can call you in their language.
How to check: search for your service in Spanish on Google. If you don't show up, or your English page does, this is your mistake.
The fix: real Spanish pages with their own URLs, not an automatic translation widget. Google recommends separate URLs for each language. We cover it step by step in our English-Spanish bilingual website guide.
4. Are you hiding your prices?
You don't need an exact price list, but a range ("from $150," "$800 to $1,500 depending on size") screens out people who can't afford you and reassures the ones who can. With no reference at all, many visitors assume you're expensive and never ask.
How to check: search your site for any number with a dollar sign. If there isn't one, it's missing.
The fix: a range per service and what moves it up or down. That's how we do it on our own pricing page.
5. Does your contact form work, and does anyone answer it?
A form that doesn't send, that delivers to an inbox nobody opens, or that lands in spam is invisible to you: you never find out about the customers you lost.
How to check: fill it out yourself today, from your phone, and time how long it takes to arrive and how long you take to reply.
The fix: few fields (name, phone, what they need), a clear confirmation after sending, alerts to the email and phone of whoever handles leads, and one person responsible for replying the same day.
6. Does your site show proof that you do good work?
Real photos of your work and customer reviews carry more weight than any "we're the best" copy. Stock photos do the opposite: people can tell.
How to check: is there at least one photo of your team or a finished job, and at least one real review with a name?
The fix: ask for Google reviews after every job with a link or QR code, and show them on your site. Note that Google bans offering discounts or freebies in exchange for reviews.
7. Do you clearly say where you work?
If you're a plumber in Houston and your site never says "Houston," neither Google nor your customer knows whether you serve them. It's one of the most common mistakes and one of the easiest to fix.
How to check: look for your city and the areas you cover on your home page.
The fix: mention your city and areas on the home page and on every service page, and set your service area in Google Business Profile. Google allows up to 20 service areas and recommends keeping them within about 2 hours of driving from your business. More in our guide to local SEO for Hispanic-owned businesses.
8. Is your text easy to read?
Light gray text on white, or copy laid over a photo, looks elegant on a designer's monitor and is unreadable on a phone in the sun. The WCAG standard asks for a minimum contrast of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
How to check: enter your text and background colors in the WebAIM contrast checker.
The fix: darker text, type that reads without zooming on phones, and no paragraphs on top of photos.
9. Can Google find and index your pages?
A page Google doesn't index doesn't exist in search results. It happens more often than you'd think: a "discourage search engines" box left checked since launch, a misconfigured robots.txt, or duplicate pages.
How to check: in Search Console, open the Page indexing report and read the reasons listed for pages that aren't indexed. For a single page, use URL Inspection and its live test.
The fix: remove noindex from pages you want in Google, fix robots.txt and submit your sitemap. Keep in mind Google uses the mobile version of your site for indexing: whatever you hide on mobile doesn't exist for Google.
10. Is your information current?
Old hours, a phone number you no longer use, a 2023 promotion or a service you dropped make customers doubt everything else on the page. And if your site and your Google profile disagree, they don't know which one to trust.
How to check: compare phone, address, hours and services across your site, your Google profile, Facebook and Yelp.
The fix: one version of those details, updated everywhere the same day anything changes.
Self-audit checklist
| Mistake | How to check | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Slow loading | PageSpeed Insights, mobile tab | Core Web Vitals failed |
| No contact button | Your phone, count the taps | More than 2 taps to call |
| English only | Search your service in Spanish | You're missing or your English page shows |
| No prices | Search your site for "$" | No range anywhere |
| Contact form | Fill it out yourself | Doesn't arrive or no same-day reply |
| No proof | Check the home page | Only stock photos, zero reviews |
| Service area | Look for your city on the home page | It isn't there |
| Contrast | WebAIM checker | Below 4.5:1 |
| Indexing | Search Console | Key pages not indexed |
| Outdated info | Compare site and Google profile | Different phone or hours |
If you'd rather have someone check and fix all this for you, see our website design service or get in touch. We work in English and Spanish, on your time zone.
FAQ
- Which of these mistakes should I fix first?
- Start with whatever blocks contact: the call or WhatsApp button and the contact form. Those take hours, not weeks, and don't depend on Google. Then move on to speed and indexing, which take longer to show results.
- Do I need to rebuild my whole website to fix these?
- Rarely. Most of them can be fixed on the site you have: rewriting copy, adding a button, testing the form, compressing images. A full redesign makes sense when your platform won't let you make those changes or the site was never built to work on phones.
- My site runs on a Wix or Squarespace template. Does this still apply?
- Yes. Those platforms handle part of the technical side, but they don't decide whether you show prices, say where you work or answer messages. Those are content and process mistakes, not tool problems.
- Can I offer customers a discount for leaving a review?
- Not on Google. Its policy bans offering money, discounts or free services in exchange for a review. You can ask for one with a link or a QR code after every job.
- How often should I go through this list?
- A quick pass every three months, and any time you change your phone number, hours, prices or services. Search Console emails you about several indexing problems, so connect your site even if you won't check it often.