9 Website Challenges Every Small Business Struggles With

Websites are invaluable assets for small businesses. They provide a platform to reach customers and showcase the products or services they offer. But creating, managing and maintaining a website is not an easy task. From security threats and hackers to keeping content fresh and engaging, a website can require a lot of time and attention. As a result, there are many website challenges that businesses commonly face in their online operations. This article will explore nine of these obstacles and how you can overcome them.

Did you know that more than half of website traffic is through a mobile device? Not a big surprise when you think about the popularity of smartphones and tablets today.

Small organizations often face challenges when it comes to properly optimizing their sites for mobile devices. Not taking mobile users into account when designing a website can negatively affect the user experience, despite how good it looks on a computer.

Mobile optimization helps marketers learn more about who is visiting their site, makes it easy for shoppers to shop for products, and ensures that customers using any type of device have a pleasant browsing experience.

Not optimizing your website for mobile will make it difficult to grow leads and lead to fewer conversions and sales. To avoid being left behind in today’s digital world, small business owners should prioritize building multi-device friendly websites.

Most small businesses today have a website, but with increased web traffic comes the possibility of server downtime issues. Long periods of downtime can cause serious problems for both customer experience and user engagement.

To keep users engaged, companies need to optimize their servers for maximum performance to create a seamless experience. Unfortunately, small businesses with limited resources don’t always find it easy to resolve server downtime. Therefore, it is extremely beneficial to know preventative measures and ways to avoid downtime in the first place.

It is a well-known fact that slow loading times significantly reduce customer satisfaction and overall website performance. Would you wait 10 seconds or more for a web page to load, or would you look for another website instead?

It is essential that all small business owners are aware of the causes of slow site speed. In particular, large images can greatly reduce the loading speed of a website due to the larger file size. Additionally, an outdated plugin or poorly written code can lead to a frustrating customer experience during checkout.

Slow loading time is a business website challenge that can be avoided by being diligent with regular maintenance and using plugins for website caching and image size optimization.

For small businesses, having a well-designed website is the key to success online. Unfortunately, many small business owners struggle with the challenges that come with designing and creating an effective website. Bad design decisions are often due to a lack of web development experience, inadequate resources, or simply a lack of time or effort.

These decisions can be costly and have detrimental effects on these businesses, such as high bounce rates for visitors and difficulty growing. Small businesses must be diligent in creating an attractive website if they are to be successful, as good design exponentially increases the chances that visitors will stay on your page and convert into customers or leads.

As a small business owner, there are several cyber threats that you need to protect your site against. You might hear about the big companies making headlines after a security breach, but those aren’t the only ones vulnerable to attack. Small businesses can often face even more security challenges when trying to protect their website, as they may not have the necessary resources or knowledge. These cyberattacks not only leave your business exposed to financial risk and data loss, but can also cause significant damage to your reputation.

That’s why it’s essential that you stay up to date on the latest malware and viruses, invest in secure hosting protocols, and regularly monitor your website for any suspicious activity. With the right protection measures in place and by keeping your website up-to-date, you’ll be able to respond quickly in the event that malicious software tries to take over your website.

Maintaining a website can be challenging for small business owners who lack dedicated IT support. Without dedicated IT support, it can be difficult to keep up with the changing technology and compliance landscape.

Businesses need to invest in technology solutions that can help maintain complex website details while owners and managers focus on other aspects of running the business. Outsourcing your IT support can be a great way to solve most of your business website challenges while keeping your website online and visible.

High traffic is something every business strives for, but when it comes to the online world, there can be unpredictable and unidentified website challenges that occur as a result of high volumes of traffic. For small businesses, these issues can be even more daunting. Issues such as lagging servers, difficulty accessing content, or crashes may occur. Additionally, the traffic can expose security threats through malware and phishing attacks.

To help mitigate these risks, using a content delivery network (CDN) and hosting your website on a scalable cloud or VPS platform are wise steps to address the high-traffic issues that come with having an online presence.

Many small business owners make the mistake of thinking that cheap website hosting is the way to go, but this can often lead to business website challenges that could otherwise be avoided. Poor performance, slow load times, and increased security risks are all potential drawbacks, along with fewer features. The initial savings may seem attractive, but losing customers due to poor user experience can be devastating.

Fortunately, small businesses don’t have to sacrifice quality for price. There are plenty of quality options at affordable prices available today. It pays to do some research and determine what type of hosting best suits the needs of a business. After all, ensuring customer satisfaction online is paramount to the success of a business.

It can be daunting for small businesses when their website fails due to hardware or software issues, as the costs of repairs and downtime can be considerable. Troubleshooting computers and network equipment can seem like an insurmountable task, especially with limited time and resources. In these cases, it is important to fully diagnose the underlying causes to quickly identify if technical assistance is needed.

Fortunately, there are preventative measures that every small business should take to reduce the likelihood of future failures. Regular system maintenance helps protect against potential problems caused by outdated hardware or security issues. Researching reputable vendors for efficient hardware solutions is also crucial to successfully resolving any current technical issues or preventing them from occurring in the future.

The Liquid Web team will identify and block cyber threat activity using threat intelligence and vulnerability management. The Liquid Web team is committed to protecting your site, app, and content. We’ll monitor and manage your servers and networks and fix most problems before you know what happened.

With proper planning and precautions, many of these risks can be minimized or even eliminated. Liquid Web is dedicated to helping small businesses overcome whatever challenges they may face in maintaining a successful online presence. Contact us to get started!