For a local business, the website has one main job: turn someone nearby who is searching right now into a call, a visit or a booking. Most of the mistakes that stop this are small and cheap to fix. Here are the ones we see most, and what to do about each.
1. The site is hard to use on a phone
People looking for a plumber, a bakery or a dentist are usually on a phone, often outside. A site designed on a large monitor and squeezed onto a small screen loses them: text too small to read, buttons too close together, menus that do not open.
The fix: open your site on your own phone and try to do the three things customers do most, such as finding your hours, calling you and getting directions. Each should take one or two taps. Text should be readable without zooming, and buttons large enough to hit with a thumb.
2. It is slow
A slow page loses visitors before they see anything. Google measures loading experience with three Core Web Vitals, and publishes the targets a page should meet:
| Measure | What it means | Good |
|---|---|---|
| LCPLargest Contentful Paint | How quickly the main content appears. | 2.5 seconds or less |
| INPInteraction to Next Paint | How quickly the page reacts to a tap or click. | 200 ms or less |
| CLSCumulative Layout Shift | How much the layout jumps while it loads. | 0.1 or less |
The fix: test your home page with Google's free PageSpeed Insights. The usual culprits are oversized photos, too many plugins, an autoplaying video and chat or tracking scripts nobody uses. Resize photos to the size they are shown at, use modern formats such as WebP or AVIF, and remove what you do not need.
3. Contact details are hidden or out of date
A visitor who cannot find your phone number in a few seconds will call the next result. Equally damaging are wrong opening hours, an old address or a contact form that nobody reads.
The fix: put your phone number, address and hours in the header or footer of every page. Make the number a tap-to-call link. Write the business name, address and phone number exactly the same way everywhere: your site, your Google Business Profile, social media and directories. Check them every time something changes, and update holiday hours before the holiday.
4. No Google Business Profile, or a neglected one
For searches with a place in them, such as "bakery near me", the map results and business profiles often appear before any website. A Google Business Profile is free, and it is frequently the first thing a customer sees.
The fix: claim and verify your profile. Choose the right main category, add your hours, photos of the place and your work, and a link to your site. Answer reviews, the good ones and the bad ones, briefly and politely. Post when something changes. Then make sure the details match your website.
5. No clear next step
Many sites describe the business well and never say what to do next. Visitors who are ready to act have to hunt for it.
The fix: decide on the one action you want most, such as call, book or order, and make it the most visible button on the page, at the top and again at the end. Use plain words that describe the action: "Book a table", "Call for a quote". One main button per page works better than five that compete.
6. It shuts out some visitors
Some of your customers have poor eyesight, use a screen reader or cannot use a mouse. Accessibility problems turn them away, and many of the fixes also help everyone else, for example on a sunny day outside.
The fix: make sure text has strong contrast against its background, every image that carries meaning has a short description in its alt text, buttons and links say where they go, and the site works with only a keyboard. In the EU, the European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025 to many consumer services sold online, so for an online shop this is also a legal question. Ask your developer to check against WCAG 2.2 Level AA.
7. Security is left to chance
A hacked small business site can send visitors to scams, show a browser warning or vanish from search results.
The fix: serve every page over HTTPS. Keep the software, theme and plugins updated, and remove the ones you do not use. Use two-step sign-in for the site admin, the hosting account and the domain registrar. Keep regular backups that you can restore, and protect your contact form against spam. Our cybersecurity checklist for small businesses covers the rest of the business.
A ten-minute check you can do today
- On your phone, find your hours, call you and get directions. Count the taps.
- Run your home page through PageSpeed Insights.
- Search for your business by name and by trade plus town, and look at what Google shows.
- Compare the name, address and phone number on your site and your profile.
- Tab through your home page with the keyboard and see whether you can reach the main button.
If the list shows more than you want to fix yourself, you can hire a professional for it. Your first project on Internetivo walks through posting a website project and approving the work milestone by milestone.
Common questions
- Do I need a website if I have a Google Business Profile?
- The profile helps people find you. A website is the place you control fully, where you can explain your services, show prices and take bookings. The two work best together.
- How fast is fast enough?
- Google suggests the main content should appear within 2.5 seconds, and the page should react to a tap within 200 milliseconds.
- Is a contact form enough?
- Offer a form and a phone number. Many local customers prefer to call, and a form only works if someone reads it every day.
- How often should I check my site?
- Look at the basics every month and whenever something changes: hours, prices, staff, address or services.
Pick the first mistake on this list that applies to you and fix it this week. Small fixes add up to more calls.