The 5 mistakes small business owners make on their websites (and how to fix each).

I've looked at hundreds of small business websites in the last six months. Same five mistakes keep showing up. Same five fixes work every time.

If your business has a website and you haven't actively redesigned it in the last 2-3 years, there's a strong chance you're making at least three of these.

Mistake 1: Your phone number isn't tap-to-call on mobile.

Open your site on your phone. Scroll to find your phone number. Tap it.

If your phone immediately offers to call the number, you're good. If you have to copy and paste, you've lost most of your mobile visitors. They won't bother.

The fix: Whoever built your site needs to wrap your phone number in an HTML <a href="tel:..."> link. It's a one-line change. Should take 5 minutes. If your site is on Squarespace/Wix, there's literally a button for it in their phone-number settings.

Cost of NOT fixing this: studies suggest 40-60% of mobile prospects who would call you, don't.

Mistake 2: Stock photos that look like stock photos.

The smiling woman with a headset. The diverse handshake. The sterile shot of "professional services people." Visitors recognize these instantly. They subconsciously code your business as "fake" or "trying too hard."

The fix: Replace every stock photo with a real photo. Of you. Your space. Your team. Your work. Your customers (with permission).

Even badly-shot iPhone photos of your real shop will out-convert the prettiest stock library by a wide margin. Authenticity beats production value every time, especially for local businesses.

Pro tip: hire a college kid for $200 to do a half-day photo shoot at your shop. You'll have enough authentic photos for years.

Mistake 3: No clear "what we do" within 5 seconds.

Squint at your homepage. Imagine you've never heard of this business. Set a timer for 5 seconds. Can you tell, with certainty:

• What this business sells or does?
• Where it's located?
• Who it's for?

If any of those are unclear, you're losing about half your visitors before they ever scroll.

The fix: Your homepage's biggest headline should be a literal description of what you do, written for the customer, not for you. Not "Crafting Excellence Since 1987." Try "Custom suit alterations in Brooklyn — same-day service for most jobs."

I know it feels less poetic. Trust me.

Mistake 4: Tiny, scared-looking reviews section (or no reviews at all).

If your business has 50+ reviews on Google, but they're not prominently featured on your website, you're throwing away your single biggest credibility asset.

The "trust gap" is the #1 reason a website visitor doesn't buy. Reviews close that gap faster than anything else you can do.

The fix: Pull 3-5 of your best reviews onto your homepage. Real names (first name + last initial), real review text, 5 stars visible. Not buried at the bottom — somewhere in the first scroll.

Better: add a link to your full Google Reviews. "See all 247 reviews →"

Best: add the schema.org Review markup (your designer will know how) so Google's AI quotes your reviews in search results.

Mistake 5: Your contact form has 8 fields.

Name. Email. Phone. Company. Address. How did you hear about us? Tell us about your project. Preferred contact method.

Every additional field cuts your form completion rate by 5-10%. An 8-field form might convert at 2-5%. A 2-field form converts at 15-25%.

Math: more fields, fewer leads. Always.

The fix: Cut the form to 2 fields. Email + "How can we help?" That's it. Or even simpler: just email + send.

You can get the rest on the phone. Or in your reply email. Or never — most of the questions weren't actually needed.

The 1-hour audit

Block out an hour this week. Make a coffee. Open your website on your phone. Walk through the five checks above one at a time:

1. Tap your phone number — does it call?
2. Are your photos real or stock?
3. Is "what we do, where, for whom" clear in 5 seconds?
4. Are your reviews prominent on the homepage?
5. How many fields does your contact form have?

For each "fail," make a note. Then in the second hour, fix the easy ones (tap-to-call, contact form trim). The harder ones (photos, headline, reviews) take a day or two.

Total investment: 5-10 hours. Lift in lead conversion: typically 30-60%. Most business decisions don't have that kind of payoff.

The "or just let us do it" option

Yeah, this is where I plug my own thing. WebsitesDone4u rebuilds small business websites with all five of these things baked in (plus another 30 things you didn't know were broken) for $999, all-in, first year. Live in 5 business days.

If a one-hour audit sounds painful or you read this and thought "I make all five of these mistakes" — give me a holler. We'll fix it together.

Either way: don't let your website keep losing leads silently. It's the most expensive kind of loss.