Someone searches for what you sell, taps your site on their phone, waits three seconds for it to load, and closes the tab. You never see it happen. No error message, no complaint, just one fewer call than you should have gotten that day. Multiply that by every visitor who does the same thing and you get a slow month with no obvious cause.
We rewrote this post in 2023 with a list that made sense back then. Some of it still holds up. A lot of it doesn't, because the way people find your business changed. They're not just typing your name into Google anymore. They're asking ChatGPT which plumber to call, checking your site on a phone with three bars of signal, and expecting to book or order without picking up the phone. Here's the 2026 list, worst offenders first.
Your site is slow, and phones make it worse
Most visitors are on their phone, on cellular data, in a parking lot or a job site with weak signal. A homepage stuffed with a giant hero video and five tracking scripts might load fine on your office wifi and take eight seconds on theirs. Run your URL through Google's PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev, paste the link, hit Analyze) and look at the mobile score, not desktop. Anything under 50 is losing you visitors before they read a word.
The usual cause on older sites is a page builder plugin loading a dozen scripts for effects nobody asked for. We move clients off that kind of setup regularly, and the speed jump is often the single biggest metric change we make on a project. If your site runs on WordPress and it's been slow for years, that's worth reading about on its own: why WordPress sites end up this way and what replaces them.
AI search can't read your site, so it never recommends you
Type your own business name plus what you do into ChatGPT or Google's AI Overview and see what comes back. A growing share of people are doing exactly that instead of scrolling ten blue links, and if the answer is vague or wrong, you weren't in the running. The sites that get mentioned tend to have plain-language service pages, real prices or ranges, and clear location details, not a homepage built entirely out of a slideshow and a contact form. We wrote a full breakdown of how to get recommended by ChatGPT and Google's AI search if you want the longer version.
It's not accessible, and that's becoming a legal problem too
Small text, low-contrast grey-on-white paragraphs, and forms that only work with a mouse turn away visitors with vision or motor impairments, which is a meaningful chunk of any city's population. In Ontario it's also compliance now: businesses with 20 or more employees have an accessibility report due to the province by December 31, 2026. We covered exactly who's affected and what to fix in our AODA compliance breakdown. This isn't legal advice, check the current AODA requirements for your specific situation.
There's no way to actually do anything
A visitor lands on your site ready to buy, book, or order, and finds a phone number and an email address. That's it. If you're a service business without online booking, or a restaurant without ordering built in, you're asking every interested customer to do the work of calling you during business hours, and plenty won't bother. Booking and lead capture built into your CRM and automation setup closes that gap without you hiring anyone.
The problems that never went away
The rest of the original list is still true. It just doesn't need ten paragraphs.
| Problem | What it costs you |
|---|---|
| Confusing navigation, can't find pricing or contact info | Visitor leaves for a competitor with a clearer menu |
| No reviews, no real photos, no physical address | Visitor doesn't trust you enough to call |
| Content that's years out of date | Visitor assumes you closed or stopped caring |
| Pop-ups covering the page on arrival | Visitor closes the tab before reading anything |
| No clear next step on the page | Visitor reads, likes it, and leaves without acting |
Fix this tonight for free
Open your own site on your phone with wifi off, using regular cell data, the way most of your customers actually see it. Time how long it takes to load, try to find your phone number without zooming in, and try tapping through your own contact form with one thumb. Whatever annoys you in that five minutes is annoying your customers right now, today, for free, and most of it (a stuck pop-up, an old promotion, a phone number buried in a footer) takes an hour to fix yourself.
When it's time to stop patching and rebuild
If the fix is content, a stale price list, a dead promo banner, an out-of-date staff photo, do it yourself this afternoon. If the fix is structural, the whole thing is slow because of the platform it's built on, it can't be made accessible without a rebuild, or there's simply no way to bolt on booking or ordering, that's a real project, not a weekend task. Trying to patch a platform problem with plugins usually costs more in the long run than rebuilding it once on something built to be fast from the start. That's the conversation to have with a web design team before you sink more hours into a site that's fighting you.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if my website is actually losing me customers?
Check your analytics for bounce rate on mobile and how many visitors leave from the homepage without clicking anything. If it's high and your mobile PageSpeed score is low, that's usually your answer.
Is a slow website really costing me sales, or is that overstated?
It's real. Visitors decide whether to stay in the first few seconds, and a slow mobile load is the fastest way to lose someone before they've read a single word about what you do.
Do I need to worry about AODA if I only have a few employees?
The December 31, 2026 report only applies at 20 employees or more, but basic accessibility (readable text, forms you can use without a mouse) is worth doing regardless, since it affects real customers either way. Check the current rules for your specific size.
Can I fix these problems myself, or do I need to hire someone?
Content and clutter problems, yes, do them yourself this week. Speed and platform problems, usually not, because the fix is the foundation the site is built on, not a setting you can toggle.
What should I fix first if I can only do one thing?
Test your site on your own phone on cellular data today. Speed and mobile usability affect more visitors than any other item on this list, and you'll feel the problem yourself within thirty seconds.