Most web design advice focuses on how your website looks or which tools you should use to build it. But some of the biggest problems with a business website have nothing to do with fonts, colours or the latest design trends.

A website can look fantastic and still cost your business money.

After building more than 800 websites, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, the same problems come up again and again. They can stop potential customers from finding you, make it harder for people to get in touch and even make your business look less credible than it really is.

Here are six website problems worth checking before you spend thousands on a redesign.

1. Your website isn't appearing in search results

You can have the best-looking website in your industry, but if nobody can find it, it isn't doing much for your business.

More than half of web traffic starts with someone searching for something online. Increasingly, people are also asking AI tools and LLMs for recommendations.

If your website hasn't been built with search visibility in mind, you could be missing out on potential customers before they ever reach your homepage.

Try this simple test

Go to Google and search for the product or service you offer, followed by your town or city.

For example, if you're a web designer in Liverpool, you might search for "web designer Liverpool".

Where does your business appear?

If you're nowhere near the first page, there's a good chance potential customers are finding your competitors instead.

Being visible in search results isn't the same job as making a website look good. Both matter, but they require different considerations when a website is planned and built.

2. Your contact form is putting people off

Imagine someone has decided they want to contact your business. They've found your website, read about what you offer and are ready to take the next step.

Then they click "Get in touch" and are faced with a huge form asking for their name, email address, phone number, company, budget, how they found you and a dozen other details.

Every additional field creates another opportunity for someone to give up.

One well-known example comes from Expedia, which reportedly found that removing a single field from its checkout process generated around $12 million in additional annual revenue.

The lesson isn't that every business needs the same three-field form. It's that you should only ask for information you genuinely need at that stage.

For an initial enquiry, a name, email address and a brief description of what the customer needs may be enough.

You can find out the rest once you've started a conversation.

Test your contact form

There's another simple check that's easy to overlook: fill the form in yourself.

Does it actually submit?

Does the message arrive in the inbox you check every day?

Is the confirmation message working?

A contact form that sends enquiries into an inbox nobody monitors is effectively a broken sales channel.

3. You might not actually own your website

This is one of the more uncomfortable things to discover.

You pay someone to build your website, it goes live and everything seems fine. But what happens if the developer disappears, you decide to work with someone else or you want to move your website to another hosting provider?

If the domain is registered in somebody else's name and they are the only person with access to your hosting account, you may not have control of your own website.

Check these three things

Ask yourself:

Is the domain registered to you, in an account you can access?
Do you have access to your website and hosting account?
Could you move the website somewhere else if you needed to?

If your answer to any of these is "I'd have to ask my web developer", it's worth investigating.

The domain is particularly important. Make sure it is registered in your own account and that you have the login details.

You shouldn't have to rely on someone else to access an asset your business has paid for.

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4. You're considering a redesign before finding the problem

When business slows down, one of the first thoughts can be: "We need a new website."

Sometimes you do.

But a complete website redesign is an expensive way to fix a problem you haven't diagnosed.

Businesses can spend £15,000 or £20,000 on a new website, wait several months for it to be built and then launch it, only to discover that the original problem is still there.

Maybe the contact form was losing leads. Maybe the homepage didn't clearly explain what the business actually offered. Maybe potential customers couldn't find the website in the first place.

A new design won't necessarily solve any of those problems.

Fix the leak before rebuilding the whole website

Before committing to a complete rebuild, look at where people are dropping off.

Check your analytics. Test your forms. Review your homepage. Look at your search visibility. Check whether people can actually find the information they need.

Fix the problem you can identify first.

A smaller website improvement can cost a fraction of a full rebuild, while also giving you useful information about what is and isn't working.

A redesign should be considered when the foundations of your website can no longer support the business, rather than simply because the design looks a little dated.

5. Your website looks like your business has closed

Your website can make a perfectly healthy business look like it has disappeared.

One of the most obvious examples is a security warning.

If your website doesn't have a security certificate, browsers can display "Not secure" next to the web address. That's not exactly the message you want a potential customer to see when they're considering entering their email address or payment details.

But security isn't the only problem.

Look at the smaller details around your website:

Is the copyright notice still showing an old year?
Does your "Latest News" section contain one post from three years ago?
Are there links that no longer work?
Does your website contain information that is obviously out of date?

You know your business is open and operating. A new visitor doesn't.

An abandoned-looking website can make people question whether a business is still active, even when that's not the case.

Give your website a quick health check

There are several simple things you can do:

Make sure your website has an active security certificate.
Update the year in your website footer and set it to update automatically if possible.
Click through the important links on your website.
Use a broken-link checker to find anything you've missed.
Remove an abandoned blog or news section if you aren't realistically going to maintain it.

A website that is regularly maintained gives visitors confidence that the business behind it is maintained too.

6. Your website isn't accessible to everyone

Another problem that can go unnoticed is accessibility.

Around one in six people worldwide live with some form of disability. That can include visual impairments, colour blindness, mobility limitations and people who rely on screen readers or keyboard navigation.

If your website hasn't been designed with accessibility in mind, some visitors may simply be unable to use it.

For example, images without appropriate alternative text can be difficult for screen-reader users to understand. A menu that only works with a mouse can prevent someone navigating the website using a keyboard.

From your analytics, these visitors may simply appear as another bounce.

Some simple accessibility checks

Start with the basics:

Add useful alternative text to images.
Make sure the entire website can be navigated using a keyboard.
Check that text has sufficient contrast against its background.
Test your website with an accessibility checker.

Accessibility isn't simply about ticking a compliance box. A website that more people can use creates fewer barriers between your business and potential customers.

It's also worth being aware of the accessibility requirements that apply to your business and website, particularly as accessibility legislation continues to develop.

Your website is more than its design

None of these six problems are particularly complicated. That's partly why they're so easy to overlook.

They don't necessarily show up in a screenshot of your homepage. They aren't always obvious when you're choosing fonts or discussing colours with a designer.

But they can have a real impact on how your website performs.

Can people find you? Can they contact you? Do you control your domain and website? Is the site secure? Does it look current? Can everyone use it?

These are the questions worth asking before you start talking about a redesign.

Your website is one of the hardest-working parts of your business. It's available around the clock, introduces people to your company and often forms their first impression of you.

Yet it's easy to launch a website and then leave it untouched for years.

Think of it like a salesperson. Imagine a salesperson who nobody can find, turns potential customers away at the door, doesn't give them a way to get in touch and stands there with a giant "Not secure" sign.

You wouldn't keep that salesperson around for long.

So before spending thousands on a new website, take the time to check what's already there. Fix the problems that are costing you customers first.

You may find that your website doesn't need a complete redesign after all.

6 Common Website Problems That Could Be Costing Your Business Money