Ready for Brilliant Sales Boost by Fixing Simple Website Mistakes?

Is Your Clumsy Website Scaring Away Amazing Customers? How to Fix the Small Website Mistakes That Cost You Big Sales

Your website analytics look fine. You see visitors clicking around. But your sales are not what they should be. The problem is often not your products or your prices. It’s the experience your store provides.

A poor user experience (UX) can quietly drive away potential customers. Many online stores lose nearly a third of their possible revenue because of simple, fixable issues. The most successful stores focus on making shopping easy and trustworthy. They build a website that helps the customer, not one that gets in their way. Below are ten foundational principles that separate a struggling store from a successful one.

1. Start with Mobile-First Design

Most of your customers are not sitting at a desk. They are on their phones—waiting in line, on the couch, or during their lunch break. If your website is difficult to use on a small screen, you are losing sales before a customer even sees your products. A site that looks broken or requires a lot of effort on mobile creates frustration and makes your brand seem unprofessional.

• Design for small screens first. This means your website should be built for a phone and then adapted for larger screens like tablets and desktops, not the other way around.
• Use fluid layouts. The content on your page should automatically adjust to fit any screen size perfectly. This eliminates the need for annoying pinching and zooming.
• Keep navigation simple. Use clear menus, like a “hamburger” icon (three horizontal lines), that are easy to find and use.
• Make buttons large and touch-friendly. People use their thumbs to navigate on phones. Ensure buttons and links are big enough to be tapped easily without accidentally hitting something else. Small, hard-to-tap buttons are a major source of frustration.

2. Show a Clear Value Proposition

When a visitor lands on your site, you have about five seconds to answer three critical questions: What do you sell? Who is it for? And why should they care? If a customer cannot figure this out almost instantly, they will leave. A confusing homepage is a closed door.

Your value proposition is your store’s handshake. It needs to be firm and clear.

• Place your value proposition front and center. It should be the first thing people see on your homepage, “above the fold” (before they have to scroll).
• Use simple, direct language. Avoid jargon or marketing fluff. A clear statement like “Durable outdoor gear for family adventures” is much better than “Synergizing lifestyle solutions for the modern excursionist.”
• Make it visual. A high-quality image or a short video showing your product in action can communicate its value faster than words alone. AG1 does this well with its simple phrase, “Your Daily Nutrient Boost,” paired with a clean image of the product.

3. Optimize Your Site Speed

Every second your website takes to load, you lose customers. A slow website feels unreliable and untrustworthy. Amazon discovered that a delay of just 100 milliseconds costs them 1% in sales. Your store is no different. Customers expect a fast, seamless experience. A delay makes them wonder if your site is safe or broken.

• Compress your images. Large image files are the most common cause of slow websites. Use tools to reduce their file size without sacrificing too much quality.
• Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN). A CDN stores copies of your site on servers around the world. When a customer visits your site, the content is delivered from a server physically closer to them, which dramatically speeds up loading times.
• Enable browser caching. This allows a visitor’s browser to “remember” parts of your site, so when they return or visit another page, it loads much faster.

4. Build Intuitive Navigation

If a customer can’t find what they are looking for within a few clicks, they will give up and go to a competitor. Good navigation is like clear signage in a physical store. It guides people effortlessly to where they want to go. Confusing menus or a poor search function create a dead end.

• Use clear, logical menu labels. Use words your customers would use, like “Men’s Shoes” instead of “Footwear Solutions.”
• Make your search bar visible and smart. The search bar should be easy to find on every page. It should also be able to handle typos and suggest popular search terms as the user types.
• Implement smart filters. On category pages, allow customers to narrow down products by attributes like size, color, price, and brand. Good filters give customers control and help them find the perfect product quickly.

5. Streamline Your Checkout Process

Around 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned. The main reason is a long, complicated, or untrustworthy checkout process. This is the moment a customer is ready to give you their money. Any friction here is dangerous. Forced account creation, asking for too much information, and hiding the total cost are common mistakes that kill sales.

• Always offer guest checkout. Do not force customers to create an account to make a purchase. You can offer them the option to create an account after the sale is complete.
• Minimize form fields. Only ask for the information you absolutely need to process the order: name, shipping address, and payment details. Every extra field you ask them to fill out increases the chance they will leave.
• Show a progress bar. Let customers see exactly where they are in the checkout process and how many steps are left. This reduces anxiety and manages expectations. Nike’s checkout is a great example of a simple, frictionless process.

6. Use Social Proof to Build Trust

You can tell customers your product is great all day, but they are more likely to believe other customers. Social proof is the idea that people trust the actions and opinions of others. Seeing that other people have bought and enjoyed a product reduces risk and builds confidence.

• Place reviews on product pages. Display star ratings and written reviews prominently near the product title and “add to cart” button.
• Show real ratings and testimonials. Authentic reviews, including those that are not five stars, build more trust than a page of perfectly curated praise.
• Display user-generated content. Encourage customers to share photos or videos of themselves using your product. Seeing the product in a real-world context is powerful.

7. Make Your Design Accessible

An accessible website is one that can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities. This is not just a “nice-to-have”; it is a must-have for both ethical and business reasons. Accessible design often improves the experience for all users. More people able to use your site means more potential customers.

• Ensure good color contrast. Text should be easy to read against its background. This helps people with low vision and also anyone using their phone in bright sunlight.
• Add alt text to all images. Alternative text describes an image for screen readers and search engines. It ensures that visually impaired users understand the content and helps your site’s SEO.
• Allow for keyboard navigation. Some users cannot operate a mouse. Your entire site should be navigable using only the tab, enter, and arrow keys.

8. Offer Multiple Payment Options

If a customer is ready to buy but you don’t offer their preferred payment method, you can lose the sale instantly. People trust and feel comfortable with payment systems they already use. Limiting their options introduces unnecessary friction right at the final step.

• Accept all major credit cards. This is the baseline expectation.
• Integrate digital wallets. Offer options like PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. These methods are fast, secure, and trusted by millions.
• Provide “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) services. Services like Klarna and Afterpay can increase conversion rates, especially for higher-priced items, by allowing customers to pay in installments. Showing the logos of these payment providers builds trust.

9. Create a Clear Visual Hierarchy

When a visitor looks at your page, their eyes follow a path. You need to control that path. Visual hierarchy is the art of arranging elements to guide the user’s attention to the most important information first. A page with a good hierarchy feels organized and is easy to scan. A page without it feels chaotic.

• Make important elements stand out. Your value proposition and your “Add to Cart” button should be the most prominent things on the page. Use size, color, and bold text to draw the eye.
• Use whitespace strategically. Empty space around an element gives it breathing room and makes it more noticeable. Don’t cram your page full of text and images.
• Guide the user’s next step. Good design naturally leads the user from the product image to the description, to the reviews, and finally to the purchase button.

10. Maintain Consistent Branding

Every page, every email, and every social media post should feel like it comes from the same store. Consistency in your colors, fonts, logo, and tone of voice builds a cohesive and recognizable brand. Inconsistency feels unprofessional and erodes trust. Trust is essential for making a sale.

• Use the same colors and fonts everywhere. Your website, marketing emails, and invoices should all share the same visual identity.
• Maintain a consistent tone of voice. Whether your brand is funny, serious, or sophisticated, that voice should be the same in your product descriptions, your customer service replies, and your “About Us” page.
• Ensure a seamless experience. The feeling a customer gets on your homepage should be the same feeling they get at the final step of checkout. This predictability builds confidence and encourages repeat business.

Conclusion

Fixing your website is not about mastering complex technology. It is about understanding and respecting your customer’s time and trust. Each of the principles discussed—from making your site work perfectly on a phone to offering the payment options people prefer—is a single step toward building a better relationship with your customers.

These changes are not individual tricks; they work together to create a smooth, reliable, and pleasant shopping journey. When a website is fast, clear, and easy to navigate, it sends a powerful message: we value you, and we have made this easy for you. This feeling of being respected is what builds trust. And trust is what turns a one-time visitor into a loyal customer.​

The shift to online commerce is only growing, making a seamless digital experience more critical than ever. As competition increases, the businesses that thrive will be the ones that obsess over their customer’s experience. Start by looking at your own store through the eyes of a first-time visitor. Find one point of friction and fix it. Then find another. These small, consistent improvements are the most reliable path to stopping lost revenue and building a business that lasts.​