5 Website Mistakes Small Business Owners Don’t Know They’re Making

Written by Chat GPT - prompted and edited by Morgan Lippincott

As a small business owner, your website is one of your most powerful tools—but only if it’s working for you. Too often, business owners pour time, money, and energy into a site that ends up underperforming or becoming a source of stress. The biggest issue? They don’t even realize what’s going wrong.

At Lippincott Duo Designs, put goal is to enable small business owners to fully own, understand, and manage their websites. No mystery tech talk. No gatekeeping. Just clean design and clear guidance. If your site isn’t helping your business grow—or you’re not sure—it might be due to one of these five common (but fixable) mistakes.

1. Not Truly Owning Your Website

Many small business owners are shocked to learn they don’t really own their websites. Maybe a developer set everything up under their own accounts. Or you’re locked into a platform that limits your control. This can lead to frustrating situations—like being unable to make updates, or worse, losing your content altogether.

The Fix: Always register your domain and hosting in your own name. And work with designers (like us!) who prioritize client ownership and hand everything over after launch.

2. Ignoring Mobile Optimization

Over 50% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices. But you’d be surprised how many websites look great on a desktop yet fall short when viewing from a phone or tablet.

Buttons that are too small, text that’s hard to read, and layouts that don’t adjust can cause visitors to click away and seek out other businesses to meet their needs.

The Fix: Always preview and test your site on multiple screen sizes. Platforms like Wix, Squarespace, and many others m make this easy.

3. Hiding Important Information

It happens all the time: a beautiful site that leaves visitors wondering what the business even does. Or worse, how to contact them.

If your contact info, services, hours, or location are buried—or missing—you’re making it harder for people to choose you.

The Fix: Keep key info above the fold (the top part of your homepage). Make your navigation clear and your calls to action easy to spot.

4. Overdesigning with Too Many Fonts, Colors, or Features

It’s tempting to use all the bells and whistles. But more isn’t always better. A cluttered, overly busy site can feel chaotic—and that hurts trust and usability.

The Fix: Stick to two fonts, a simple color palette, and plenty of whitespace. Let your message shine without distractions.

5. Skipping Basic SEO

“If I build it, they will come” might work for baseball movies—not websites. Search engine optimization (SEO) helps people find you, and it’s often overlooked by DIY site builders.

The Fix: Use clear headings, relevant keywords, alt text for images, and fast-loading pages. You don’t need to be an expert to get the basics right.

Wrapping Up

If you saw yourself in one (or all) of these mistakes—don’t worry. Every business owner starts somewhere, and these are all fixable with the right support.

At Lippincott Duo Designs, we are here to help support business owners in the capacity that you need. Whether you’re building from scratch or refreshing an existing site, we’re here to guide you—without the jargon.

Want to know if your site is making any of these mistakes? Contact us to learn more about how we can help make your website work for you!

Save Money by using Canva for Your Business Website and Marketing

Creating a digital presence for your business is important, but so is being mindful of business expenses. For many small businesses, website design and functionality may be simple enough to provide flexibility around what tools you use to create and manage your website. During a recent project, we worked with business owner Rena to consolidate her expenses by converting her website to Canva, a solution she was already using for her marketing needs.

Rena is the sole owner of businesses Taste and See Bake Shop and Lum Hee's Yummies. The main purpose of her website it to provide information about her business offerings and allow customers to inquire about services. Rena was already utilizing Canva's subscription service to create marketing materials and logos, so the transition for her website needs was an easy decision. Canva has a simple framework that will enable single page web design that can be linked together via hyperlinks. They also offer some apps to enable form submissions and other functionality. Canva is limited and may not be a good fit for businesses with higher level website needs such as e-commerce or service booking. Canva also has limited mobile design flexibility which may be a dealbreaker for some businesses.

Interested in learning more about these tools and how they can help your business? Contact us about your project so we could help you get started.

Add your Business to Google

Google can be a bit of a mystery to business owners! Being highly ranked on google can make a big difference in reaching your audience. While some aspects of google business management are outside of your control, your google business page is not one of them! Setting up your google business page is a great way to engage customers and create a positive first impression.

Below is a sample video of what a google business profile looks like. For business owners looking to improve their google presence, a profile will give your customers a quick view of your business value. You can include photos and location, along with other details such as hours of operation. One significant value add from a google business profile is the ability to receive customer reviews. Google customer reviews are a great way for clients to gain confidence in your product or service.

Contact us if you would like help getting your google business page setup, we are happy to help!