This is serious, so I’ll just skip all the unnecessary introductions and jump straight into the question…. IS YOUR WEBSITE REALLY PAYING YOU OFF AS YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD? Well, Let’s be honest here – It isn’t. And that’s not just unfortunate – it’s unfair. I’m sure you’ve invested quite a bit of your time, money, effort into building your digital presence. But what’s the return? Probably you thought that getting a sleek homepage was the magic key. Maybe you assumed leads would start pouring in. But the reality? None of it worked.

Here’s the hard truth: most websites are NOT built to convert. They’re built to exist.
Let me break this down for you – Your website isn’t just a digital brochure — it’s supposed to be your 24/7 salesperson. If it’s not converting, it’s not working. So read on to know the mistakes that most people make while developing their websites. And as a bonus I will also share with you a checklist of all the things that should be there on your website for it to be able to give the correct returns. So, keep reading…..

One Size Doesn’t Fit All – Especially Online

When I talk about this what I am hinting at is that it is wrong for you to assume that the kind of website built for your friend who owns a different kind of business will work for you as well. But that is not it, let’s look into the other common areas of mistake most business owners such as you make in this regard.

1. Design Flaws

• Crowded Layout: Too many elements used simultaneously, they seem to be fighting for attention, and ultimately lead to user confusion. For example, homepage with a hero- banner that has different offers displays in a speeded up rotation. Or may be multiple pop ups, too many CTAs, all such additions are only making your go overboard and not draw any traction as such.
• Poor Visual Hierarchy: One of the main things any user is concerned is the ease of navigation through your website. No clear flow from headline to CTA and users don’t know where to look for what they are looking for. It is thus that you need a website built with an appropriate UX design prepared before development. It gives a clear picture of how a user will move around on visiting your website.
• Non-Responsive Design: along the same lines of the previous point, a user experience is largely affected with the ease at which they can work around on your website – on all kinds of devices. If your website looks broken or hard to use on mobile/tablets or any other kind of device, that becomes the last time they are going to visit you, let alone conversion.
• Overused Templates: the first impression is the last impression – this proverb plays a major role in the look of a website. When you prefer to go with a lower budget developed you are mostly likely to get a readymade, overused, generic look for your website. This undoubtedly fails to reflect your brand’s uniqueness.
• Inaccessible Design: the other points of concern with regard to the design of your faulty website could be its font size (which is probably too small or not legible) , or poor contrast. Also, you may have not even thought about your website being non supportive for screen readers. That too adds on to a poor impression in the minds of your website visitors.

2. Poor Copy

• Generic, Vague Messaging: Now looking beyond the design, the next most important common area of negligence lies in the content of the webssite. “We provide best-in-class solutions” – I’m sure you must have either seen this on websites or worse still have it on your existing site. Well, I’m sorry to burst your bubble here, it actually says nothing real. That is such a generic message people barely get any insight of what you actually provide. Your website becomes like an “invisible store” — it exists, but nobody knows what’s inside.
• No Clear Value Proposition: Have you heard about the “why isn’t my phone ringing?” syndrome? Don’t worry it’s no new virus in the market. Instead, it’s what a lot of website owners say after they have built ‘a good enough website’ (according to them). Well, I would say had you thought about the need for a clear value proposition of your business then you would never have had this syndrome. When you know your website says something like “ We are the solution to all your problems” you should know you are beating around the bush, and that’s not helping. There are high chances that you have failed to make use of the CTAs appropriately. While filling your website with a lot of them is not advisable but not having them at all is also a wrong decision. Remember — “Contact Us” isn’t always enough.
• Incomplete Content Strategy & Inconsistent Tone: the kind of content within a website adds a very important edge to the business. I have often heard my customers say during the website development scope discussion – We don’t need the blog page now, that we can add later. And in my head I go like oh no not another person and then I jump in to explain why and how the content on your website can be a game changer. The Importance of Website Content: Empowering Your Only 24/7 Sales Expert – Hyrrokkin read this to know more.

The writing style of a website also plays a key role in engaging a visitor. For that the two things that need to be remembered are –

1. use a tone that ease to understand and
2. Remain consistent with that tone throughout the website. Being formal in one section and casual in another indicates the lack in brand voice.

When talking about content, outdated blogs or just generic blogs without any specific category address and also multiple language offerings are other areas that seem to not be given much importance.

• Copied or Repetitive Text: it is unfortunate that even to this date, not a lot of people understand the kind of importance that is attached to SEO (Search engine optimisation). However, what one commonly fails to address is using copied or repetitive text has a big negative impact on your website. The credibility of your website is lost when popular search engines notice repeated content.

3. Slow Load Times 

in this fast-paced world, no one has the time to wait for a slow website. Some of the very common reasons why your website may be taking more than normal time to load is heavy images or videos, too many http requests, poor hosting choices,no caching or minification, and unnecessary external scripts.

4. No Trust Signals 

often the lack of testimonials or case studies could be a cause for failure of your website. Without these factors, it becomes difficult to build trust among your visitors. Also, if you have not been updating the content on your website, such as blogs and certificates, or even some old link that no longer works, it could be a reason for people to not be able to believe you completely. Another huge area of distrust creation is not having the SSL or https, which basically means your website is ‘Not Secure’. Certificates and client logos also play a partial role in this trust building activity.

5. Lack of SEO Fundamentals 

Now coming to the more technical areas of mistake is the lack of knowledge on the SEO basics that need to be followed when building a high performance website. People are often seen missing out on:

• Meta Titles and Descriptions                                                                 
• Keyword Strategy
• Proper URL Structure                                                                      
• Proper Links to avoid  404s
• Sitemap or Robots.txt
• Backup System in Place
• Monitoring or Error Logging
• Version Control

What you must know is weak technical foundations can be the cause of the poor performance of your website.

6. Missing out on Analytics or Data Tracking

Next, without Google Analytics or GA4, you have no insight into how visitors behave on your site. Without goal tracking, you don’t know what’s driving leads or sales. And without heatmaps or session recordings, you’re only guessing at what users want. Let me give you a fact – 88% of consumers won’t return after a bad user experience. So, if your website is missing such analytical details, it’s not good enough.

7. A Weak And Inffective Site Architecture

Consider how would a visitor to your home feel if they entered through the door and had to walk into your kitchen? Or had to pass through the bedroom to arrive at your drawing room? Without your guidance, visitors don’t just get confused—they either stand at the entrance unsure of where to go or simply leave. That is exactly what happens if your website architecture is not planned.

A confusing menu makes important pages hard to find. Without breadcrumbs, users get lost deep inside the site. And if it takes too many clicks to complete an action, visitors often give up before converting.

8. Ignoring Mobile-First Optimization

When building your website, you may have done everything within your capacity to get the best-looking website but if you have not thought about how it will function on a mobile of any category, you my friend have lost the plot. We cannot afford to forget that most people operate their mobile phones more than their laptops, desktops and the like. Now if the website does not have proper buttons which are clearly visible or tap-to-call or WhatsApp links or even mobile friendly forms, they would not bother spending time here.

Honestly no one here has so much time to wait for a website to open up on their mobile phones. Google says 53% of mobile users abandon a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Maybe you tried building the website all by yourself just to save a few extra bucks or chose the cheapest agency. You believed it was enough – only to find that the website is a dead asset.

9. Lack of Maintenance & Ownership

It is often that people want to build a website but at a cheap rate and where can they find such a website? Mostly with freelancers. While you may be happy to not feel a pinch on your pocket but what these freelancers do is give you a website without any documentation. You have no clue whatsoever, which role is for who. Roles are assigned without much idea and land up having things added and deleted from the website. You are basically without a roadmap and that is risky!

10. Poor Conversion Strategy

When lead magnets and offers are missing from the website, visitors leave without engaging with your business. We can totally trust the data that websites that have properly defined CTAs convert 62% more than otherwise. Another common mistake made during website development is missing out on retargeting strategies. The websites failure to address campaign specific landing pages dumps all your visits onto the home page.

11. No Clear Customer Journey 

The sign of being a good host is to guide your visitors properly. Your website (which is your 24/7 sales person) should guide visitors step by step — from awareness to decision. Without a structured flow (Homepage → Service Page → Proof → CTA), users often drop off midway. This is probably where your website is falling short — you may be getting traffic, but without a guided journey, visitors don’t know what to do next, resulting in low conversions.

Phewww…that’s a lot of mistakes right? But we don’t just stop after knowing the problems…I give to you your one-stop solution to all these problems – Hyrrokkin Branding Services Limited. At Hyrrokkin, we don’t build websites. We build digital salespeople. Strategically crafted, audience-first and conversion-focused. We bring you the real deal of a high performance website with the highest conversion rates and fastest growing strategies all channelised through your website. I assure you the difference is real!

How then is Hyrrokkin your Solution Provider?

What makes Hyrrokkin different from the rest –

• We start with your audience – not assumptions
• We custom-build for results – not just looks
• We focus on ROI – because “nice” doesn’t pay the bills
• We offer audits, fixes, redesigns and full strategy

We bring you strategy, storytelling, design, and tech together! Our guarantee – your website stops being a problem and starts becoming a business tool. All I can say is your business will evolve — and your website should evolve with it. If it can’t adapt to new services, customer behaviors, or tech updates, it will quickly fall behind competitors.

Remember: Your website should be your hardest working employee. If it’s not, you’re burning money every day.

And now for my promise….so here it is the handy checklist for you to know where your website stands.

Website Audit Checklist