Common mistakes on corporate websites

Most corporate websites we audit make the same mistakes. They're not sophisticated technical failures: they're obvious patterns any visitor detects in 5 seconds, costing the business contacts every single day. The good news: almost all of them can be fixed without rebuilding the site, just by changing specific blocks. These are the ten most common ones.

The 10 most expensive mistakes

1. Generic stock photos: users spot the stock image and lose trust. Fix: real photo of the team, office or product, even if shot on a phone.
2. Vague headline like «Innovative solutions for your business»: doesn't say what you do or for whom. Fix: one specific sentence with the what + for whom.
3. No clear CTA: 4 different buttons competing. Fix: one primary CTA per section, repeated at the footer.
4. Slow site: takes more than 4 seconds to load. Fix: WebP, lazy loading, CDN.
5. Ignoring mobile: broken menu, tiny fonts, impossible buttons. Fix: mobile-first redesign.
6. Zero social proof: no clients, no testimonials. Fix: ask 3-5 real testimonials with name and company.
7. Wall of text: 8-line paragraphs without breathing room. Fix: bullets, H2 every 3-4 paragraphs, short sentences.
8. Buried contact: visitors have to hunt for the form. Fix: phone visible in the header and form at the end of every page.
9. No technical SEO: empty meta tags, no sitemap, no schema. Fix: technical audit and basics in place within a week.
10. Dated design: it's obvious it's from 2017. Fix: current typography, generous spacing and a clean palette.

Why this happens at serious companies

Usually for two reasons. One: the site was built by «the nephew» or a freelancer 5 years ago and nobody has touched it since. Two: each department (marketing, sales, leadership) has been adding blocks without coherence. The result: a website that no longer represents the company today.

How to prioritise the fixes

You don't need to fix everything at once. Order by impact vs effort:

• High impact, low effort: headline, CTA and speed. Do it this week.
• High impact, medium effort: social proof, real photos, visible contact. Do it this month.
• Medium impact, high effort: mobile redesign, technical SEO. Quarterly plan.
• Low impact: cosmetic details with no conversion impact. Last.

80 % of the return from a redesigned website comes from 20 % of the changes. If you fix headline, CTA and speed, you've already done what matters.

When a full rebuild really makes sense

Three signals where a complete redesign pays off more than patching:

• Technical structure doesn't allow performance improvements (obsolete theme/plugin).
• Branding has changed and the site doesn't reflect it.
• Business model has pivoted and the site sells something else.

If you're not in one of those three cases, you can probably fix the current site and double leads without throwing anything away. At Tuagenciaweb we do express 48-hour audits with a clear priority list. Request yours with no commitment.