What’s Holding Your Website Back? 7 Common Website Issues and Fixes
You know how important your website is for your business to thrive in our digital world. But, having a fancy-looking website alone doesn’t mean your business will be successful.
You need a website that performs well behind the scenes. An optimised site designed for performance, a great user experience, and SEO. This is key to your business achieving its goals.
This often comes down to “invisible” factors like what CMS you use, what hosting provider you work with, and how well-maintained your site is. Many businesses think a website that looks good also performs well, but this is far from the truth.
This is why it’s so important to set clear website goals. Carefully monitor your website’s performance over time to see how it’s actually helping your business performance.
If you’ve invested in a website that isn’t delivering results, then here are some of the most common things you’ll need to fix.
Accessibility
A website that isn’t accessible can drive away a significant portion of your audience, especially those with disabilities.
Accessibility isn’t just about compliance with regulations (like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) – it’s about ensuring every visitor can use your site effectively.
This includes optimising for screen readers, ensuring text is legible with proper contrast, and providing alternative text for images. If your website isn’t accessible, you risk losing customers and harming your reputation.
And this is something your business should take seriously. With around 24% of the UK’s population alone having a recognised disability, you could be cutting out an enormous portion of your target audience if your site isn’t accessible.
Chances are that your site isn’t up to standard either. A whopping 96% of homepages has detected WCAG2 failures. So, if you’re not consciously optimising your site for accessibility, it’s fair to assume your site isn’t actually compliant.
And this is more important than ever before. With the new European accessibility laws coming into practice, sites that don’t update now could be hit with penalties.
To address this, you’ll need to run a full accessibility audit and implement changes like keyboard navigation, video captions, and simple language.
Accessibility improvements can even boost your SEO and conversion rates too. Ultimately, an accessible website is for everyone and will always offer a better user experience. A better user experience results in a better performing website.
This is something you can’t afford to ignore, even though far too many businesses do. Check out our guide to website accessibility standards for more helpful tips.
Low-Quality Shared Hosting
One of the biggest problems businesses make when first building their website is cutting corners with hosting.
This may be an “invisible” issue as you can’t see what’s going on behind the scenes of your website. But trust us when we say that your users and search engines are being affected by poor web hosting.
Using low-quality shared hosting will slow down your website, especially during peak traffic periods.
When multiple websites share the same server, your site competes for limited resources, which can lead to downtime and slow load times. If your site takes too long to load, users will leave, affecting your bounce rate and SEO ranking.
Especially as your website grows and becomes more complex, as many business sites do, you’ll need a more advanced hosting solution that can keep up. Quite simply, an enterprise-level web host is essential for an enterprise site.
Upgrading to managed hosting or a dedicated server can significantly improve performance and security.
Managed hosting services, while more expensive, handle critical updates, backups, and security, allowing your site to run smoothly even during high traffic.
You’ll notice a difference, your site will be more secure, users will have a better experience, and you’ll see better search engine performance.
You’re Not Getting Organic Traffic
You may have invested in a highly functional, great-looking website. This is all well and good, but if it’s not generating traffic, then it’s kind of a meaningless investment.
This may seem silly, but so many businesses treat SEO as an afterthought. And with so much hot competition out there, ignoring SEO for your site certainly won’t do you any favours.
If your website isn’t attracting organic traffic, it’s likely because search engines can’t find or rank your content. As 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine, SEO is vital for your site’s success.
Poor SEO practices, such as missing meta tags, unoptimised keywords, and lack of quality content, all play a part.
However, the biggest issue is not having a strategic SEO plan to begin with. Every page on your site, and every bit of content you publish, should be part of a broader SEO plan to ensure your site performs well in search engines.
Without consistent traffic from search engines, you’re missing out on a free and sustainable source of visitors.
This either means you’ll have to pay a lot in PPC to get site traffic, or you won’t get any traffic at all.
Start by conducting keyword research, optimising on-page elements like titles and descriptions, and producing high-quality content regularly. Although, to really succeed at SEO, you’ll need to do a far more in-depth strategic dive into your website, market, competition, and opportunities.
Also, ensure your site is mobile-friendly and has a clear, logical structure for both users and search engine crawlers.
Strong SEO is the best way to increase your visibility and drive consistent traffic over time. It’s one of the most important things any website should focus on.
Worried SEO is too slow? Then take a look at our guide on SEO vs PPC, where we break down how to combine the two effectively.
Your Site Isn’t Converting
OK, now let’s say your website is perfectly optimised for SEO and generates all the traffic you desire. This still won’t get you anywhere if that traffic isn’t converting into customers.
Quite simply, traffic alone won’t benefit your business. Without leads or customers, traffic is just a vanity metric.
Low conversion rates can be the result of confusing navigation, poorly designed landing pages, or an unclear call to action (CTA). Visitors need to immediately understand the value you offer and how to take the next step.
Simplifying the user journey, adding compelling CTAs, and testing different page layouts can improve conversions. Focus on building trust with user testimonials, secure payment gateways, and transparent information.
Regular A/B testing of headlines, offers, and page designs will give you data-driven insights to improve your conversion rate.
You also need to ensure your site offers a great experience from the first moment people land on it. 40% of online users will abandon a website within three seconds if it takes too long to load.
So, always make sure you’re measuring your conversion rates and how conversions compare to traffic. If it’s too low – do something about it.
Not Enough Information
A common issue with websites, related to low conversions, is that they simply don’t provide enough value for users.
If people are leaving your site without getting all the information they came for, then your site isn’t doing its job.
If your site doesn’t provide enough information, visitors may leave without taking action because they don’t understand your offering. Having too little content leaves users uncertain about your products, services, or how to get in touch.
Not offering enough information on your website could also impact your authority. This could, in turn, harm your SEO.
Make sure each page communicates clearly what you do and why it matters. Include FAQs, case studies, and product details to address potential questions and objections.
Comprehensive content builds trust and helps guide visitors towards making informed decisions, which can improve both user experience and SEO rankings.
No Strategic Approach to Your Digital Presence
Far too many websites are built without a clear strategy in the first place. This results in inconsistent branding, outdated content, and missed opportunities.
This happens when a business knows it needs a website, so it just publishes one without thinking about how it aligns with its broader digital presence. If this is the case, the website won’t do its job of attracting and converting customers.
A strategic approach means aligning your website with your business goals, ensuring that every page serves a purpose, whether it’s lead generation, brand awareness, or customer support.
Start by setting clear objectives for your website, such as increasing conversions or improving customer engagement. Then, track key metrics like traffic sources, bounce rates, and conversion rates to assess performance.
Importantly, review your website’s place in your broader digital strategy. Understand where your site fits in and how you can improve it for a smoother customer journey.
A data-driven strategy, combined with regular updates and optimisations, will keep your website aligned with your broader digital marketing efforts.
Regular Site Maintenance and Updates
One of the biggest issues we see with websites is when their owners leave them to gather dust.
Just because you started with a high-performance website, it doesn’t mean the site will continue to perform over time. In reality, all websites start to degrade if you don’t take care of them.
Soon, sites start to become bogged down as you add new content. Not to mention the security threat of not keeping your website up to date.
Neglecting your website can lead to serious problems that affect both its performance and your business reputation.
Websites, like any other technology, require regular updates and maintenance to function smoothly. Over time, plugins, themes, and software become outdated, leading to compatibility issues, security vulnerabilities, and performance drops.
When a site is left to stagnate, you run the risk of security breaches. Hackers often exploit outdated software and plugins to gain access to your site, potentially compromising customer data and your brand’s integrity.
Regular updates can patch these vulnerabilities, keeping your site secure and protecting sensitive information.
Summary
Don’t let these issues hold your business back. While they’re all too easy to fall into, they’re also easy to fix with the right approach.
At Itineris, we’ve helped many enterprise-level websites achieve their performance goals. Whatever the specific issues with your site are, we’ve found that ongoing maintenance and a well-planned strategy are the key things for ensuring your site does well.
After all, your website is your business’s most important online investment, so you need to take good care of it. This involves approaching website performance as a marathon, not a sprint.
Ready to stop your website from holding your business back? Get in touch with our team of developers, creatives, and digital experts to level-up your digital performance.
