The conversion killers we find in audits are rarely aesthetic. The site looks professional — and underperforms anyway, because the design is answering the wrong question. “Does it look good?” is table stakes. “Does it move a visitor to act?” is the job. The same quiet mistakes appear over and over.
1. Headlines that describe instead of persuade
“Welcome to Acme Solutions” and “Innovative Digital Services” could headline any site on the internet — which means they say nothing about yours. The test: could a competitor paste your headline unchanged? If yes, rewrite it around the visitor’s problem and outcome. The headline is read by more people than everything else combined; it deserves proportional effort.
2. Competing calls to action
When a page asks for five things — call, subscribe, download, follow, buy — it gets none reliably. Decide each page’s one primary action, make that button visually unmistakable, and demote everything else to quiet links. Vague labels waste the click too: “Get my free quote” outperforms “Submit” because it restates the value at the moment of decision.
3. Mobile as an afterthought
Most first visits are on a phone, yet designs are still approved on a 27-inch monitor. The classic casualties: tap targets too small, key content buried below endless stacked sections, and forms that are misery on a keyboard-less screen. Review every page on a real phone before sign-off — not the responsive preview, the actual device.
4. Trust gaps at the decision point
Visitors decide with their scepticism on. No real names or faces, stock photos, no reviews near the buy button, no address in the footer — each is a small withdrawal from credibility exactly when it is needed. Put proof next to the action: a testimonial beside the form converts; the same testimonial on a separate page decorates.
5. Forms that ask too much, too soon
Every field is a toll. Company size, budget, how-did-you-hear — each one costs completions, and most of it can be asked after contact is made. Cut to the minimum viable ask, and completion rises immediately; it is routinely the cheapest conversion win on the whole site. The rest of these fixes are what a conversion-focused design pass looks for.