Your website might be losing you customers right now. Not in an obvious way — nobody sends you an email saying "I was going to hire you but your website put me off." They just leave. They call someone else. And you never know it happened.
Here are the seven most common website problems we see with local businesses, and what to do about each one.
1. It takes forever to load
If your website takes more than three seconds to load on a mobile phone, you are losing roughly half of your visitors before they even see your content. That is not an exaggeration — it is backed by extensive research into web user behaviour.
The most common causes: massive uncompressed images, too many plugins (if you are on WordPress), cheap hosting, heavy page builders, and embedded videos that load on page open rather than on click.
How to check: Go to pagespeed.web.dev and enter your website URL. Look at the mobile score. Anything below 50 needs urgent attention. Below 30 and your website is actively repelling visitors.
How to fix it: Compress all images (use squoosh.app — it is free), switch to faster hosting, remove unnecessary plugins, and consider whether your current platform is the problem. Sometimes the fastest fix is a clean rebuild on a lightweight foundation.
2. It does not work on mobile
Over 60% of local business searches happen on mobile devices. If your website does not look good and work properly on a phone screen, you are making a bad first impression with the majority of your potential customers.
The signs: text too small to read without zooming, buttons too close together to tap accurately, images stretching off screen, horizontal scrolling required, and menus that do not work on touchscreens.
How to check: Open your website on your phone right now. Can you read everything? Can you tap the phone number to call? Can you fill out the contact form? If any of these are difficult, your site is not mobile-friendly.
How to fix it: If your website was built before 2016, it probably needs a rebuild. Modern websites are built mobile-first, meaning they are designed for phones and then adapted for desktop, not the other way around.
3. There is no clear call to action
A visitor arrives at your website. They read a bit. They think "yeah, this looks alright." Then what? If there is no obvious next step — no prominent phone number, no "Book Now" button, no contact form above the fold — they drift away. You had their attention and you wasted it.
Every page on your website should have a clear, obvious action for the visitor to take. "Call now", "Get a free quote", "Book a session", "Contact us." It should be visible without scrolling and it should stand out visually from the rest of the page.
How to fix it: Add a prominent call-to-action button in the hero section of every page. Include a click-to-call phone number in the navigation bar. Add a contact form or booking link at the bottom of every page. Make the CTA buttons a contrasting colour so they are impossible to miss.
4. Google cannot find you
If your website does not appear in Google search results for your main service keywords (like "plumber Dee Why" or "personal trainer Manly"), it might as well not exist for the 80% of potential customers who find businesses through search.
Common reasons: no SEO was done when the site was built, the content does not include the keywords people actually search for, there are technical issues blocking Google from crawling the site, or the domain is too new and has no authority.
How to check: Search Google for "[your service] in [your area]" and see if your website appears in the first two pages of results. If it does not, you have an SEO problem.
How to fix it: Start with the basics. Add your target keywords to the page title, meta description, headings, and body content. Set up and complete your Google Business Profile. Get your NAP (Name, Address, Phone) consistent across all online listings. For a deeper dive, read our post on SEO vs AEO.
5. No schema markup means AI ignores you
This is the newest problem and most business owners do not even know it exists. Schema markup is code added to your website that tells AI tools (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity) exactly what your business is, where it operates, and what it offers.
Without schema markup, AI tools have to guess what your business does. And they usually will not bother — they will recommend a competitor whose website makes the information easy to extract.
How to check: Go to Google's Rich Results Test (search.google.com/test/rich-results) and paste your website URL. If no structured data is detected, you are invisible to AI search.
How to fix it: Add LocalBusiness schema (at minimum) to your website. This should include your business name, address, phone number, opening hours, and service descriptions. A web developer can implement this in a few hours. Read our AEO guide for more detail.
6. The design looks outdated
Design trends change, and a website that looked great in 2019 can look dated in 2026. When your website looks older than your competitors' sites, visitors subconsciously assume your business is less current and less capable. Fair or not, people judge the quality of your work by the quality of your website.
Signs of an outdated design: heavy use of stock photos, bright gradient backgrounds, small text on busy backgrounds, cluttered layouts with too much information on one page, and dated fonts.
How to fix it: Sometimes a visual refresh is enough — updated fonts, colours, imagery, and layout. Other times, the underlying platform or code is the problem and a rebuild makes more sense. Either way, the goal is a clean, modern design that builds trust at first glance.
7. You have no Google Business Profile (or it is incomplete)
Technically this is not a website problem, but it is so important we are including it anyway. Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is often the first thing a potential customer sees — it appears in Google Maps, in the local search results pack, and it is a primary data source for AI search recommendations.
If you do not have a GBP, or if yours is missing key information (hours, services, photos, reviews), you are leaving money on the table. A complete, active Google Business Profile with strong reviews is the single highest-impact marketing asset for any local business.
How to fix it: Claim your Google Business Profile at business.google.com. Fill in every field: name, address, phone, hours, services, description, photos. Ask your customers to leave reviews. Post updates regularly — at least once a month.
The cost of doing nothing
Every one of these problems is fixable. Some are quick. Some require professional help. But the cost of leaving them unfixed is real — it is just invisible because you never see the customers who visited your website and chose someone else.
If you are not sure where your website stands, we can take a look and tell you which of these issues apply to you. No charge, no obligation — just a straight assessment of what needs fixing and what is working fine.
Or call Adam on 0420 498 037 to talk through your options.