I've audited hundreds of small business websites over the past four years. Plumbers, cafes, accountants, tradespeople, salons. The same problems come up again and again.
These aren't obscure technical issues. They're basic things that directly cost businesses customers and money. And most business owners have no idea they exist.
I run WebDev Wales, a web development studio in South Wales. Here are the five mistakes I find on almost every small business site I look at.
1. No meta description
This is the single most common issue. Roughly 60% of the small business sites I audit have no meta description set at all.
The meta description is the summary text that appears under your website's name in Google search results. Without one, Google guesses what to show. It usually grabs a random sentence from your page, and that sentence is almost never the thing that would convince someone to click.
Here's what a search result looks like without a meta description:
Joe's Plumbing - Home
www.joesplumbing.co.uk
Cookie policy. We use cookies to improve your experience.
By continuing to use our site you agree to...
Versus with one:
Joe's Plumbing - Emergency Plumber in Cardiff
www.joesplumbing.co.uk
24/7 emergency plumber serving Cardiff and the Vale.
No call-out charge, free quotes. Call 07xxx...
The fix takes 30 seconds per page. It's the highest-impact, lowest-effort SEO improvement you can make.
How to check yours: Right-click your homepage, click "View Page Source", and search for meta name="description". If it's missing or empty, that's your problem.
2. Page titles that say nothing
After meta descriptions, page titles are the next biggest issue. I regularly see:
- "Home" (tells Google nothing)
- "Welcome" (tells Google nothing)
- The domain name with no context (e.g. "joesplumbing.co.uk")
- "DefaultHomePage" (yes, really)
- The WordPress theme name
Your page title is the blue clickable text in search results. It's the first thing people see. It needs to include what you do and where you do it.
A good page title for a local business looks like:
Joe's Plumbing | Emergency Plumber in Cardiff, South Wales
It tells Google what the business does, where it operates, and gives the searcher a reason to click. Every page on your site needs a unique, descriptive title.
3. No mobile optimisation (or fake mobile optimisation)
Google has used mobile-first indexing since 2019. That means Google primarily looks at the mobile version of your site when deciding how to rank it.
Some sites I audit have no mobile responsiveness at all. The desktop layout just shrinks down and you have to pinch and zoom to read anything. Those sites are effectively invisible to Google.
But the more common problem is fake mobile optimisation. The site technically responds to smaller screens, but the experience is terrible:
- Text too small to read without zooming
- Buttons too close together to tap accurately
- Images that overflow the screen
- Navigation menus that don't work on touch devices
- Contact forms with tiny input fields
Google's Core Web Vitals now measure real user experience. If your mobile visitors are struggling, Google knows about it, and your rankings suffer.
How to check yours: Open your site on your phone right now. Try to navigate to your contact page and fill out the form using just your thumb. If it's frustrating, it's costing you customers.
4. Slow loading speed
The average small business WordPress site I audit scores between 40 and 60 on Google PageSpeed Insights (out of 100). Some score in the teens.
The usual culprits:
- Too many plugins. I've seen WordPress installs with 30+ plugins. Each one adds JavaScript and CSS that your browser has to download and process before the page renders.
- Unoptimised images. A 4MB hero image that could be 200KB with proper compression. This alone can add 3-4 seconds to load time on mobile.
- Cheap shared hosting. The £3/month hosting plan that seemed like a bargain is serving your pages from an overloaded server with a 2-second Time to First Byte.
- No caching. Every visit rebuilds the page from scratch instead of serving a cached version.
Research consistently shows that 53% of mobile users abandon sites that take longer than 3 seconds to load. For a local business, every abandoned visit is a potential customer gone to a competitor.
How to check yours: Go to PageSpeed Insights, enter your URL, and look at the mobile score. Anything below 70 needs work. Below 50 is actively hurting you.
5. No clear call to action
This one isn't technical, but it's just as damaging. I visit small business websites where I genuinely cannot figure out what they want me to do next.
There's no prominent phone number. The contact page is buried three clicks deep. There's no "Get a Quote" or "Book Now" button. The homepage is a wall of text about the company's history with no direction for the visitor.
Your website exists to generate leads. Every page should have a clear, visible next step:
- A phone number in the header (clickable on mobile)
- A prominent "Get in Touch" or "Request a Quote" button
- A simple contact form (name, email, message, nothing more)
- Your location and service area clearly stated
I've seen businesses double their enquiry rate just by adding a sticky phone number to the mobile header. No redesign needed. Just making it obvious how to get in touch.
The common thread
All five of these mistakes share something in common: the business owner doesn't know they exist. Nobody told them their meta description was missing. Nobody told them their site scores 35 on PageSpeed. Nobody told them their page title says "Home".
If you run a small business, spend 10 minutes checking these five things on your own site. If you find problems, most of them are fixable in an afternoon with a decent web developer.
And if you're a developer building sites for small businesses, make these five things a non-negotiable part of every project. Your clients are counting on you to get the basics right.
Jack Warner is the founder of WebDev Wales, a web development studio based in South Wales. He builds modern, fast websites for small and medium businesses using Next.js and specialises in helping Welsh businesses establish a strong online presence.
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