It’s spooky season, and nothing’s creepier than a website that loads at a snail’s pace, breaks on mobile, or disappears from search results. Whether you run a small business, manage a band, or promote events online, these common “web horrors” can quietly haunt your site’s performance and scare off real customers and fans.
The good news: these issues aren’t fatal. You can fix every single one with a few smart moves—and a little expert help when needed.
Table of Contents
1. The Phantom of Slow Load Times
If your site takes longer than three seconds to load, most visitors vanish before the page even appears. Oversized images, outdated plugins, and too many scripts can drag everything down.
Why it matters:
- People leave slow sites.
- Google prefers fast ones.
- It directly impacts sales and engagement.
Example: A local tattoo artist’s gallery took seven seconds to load on mobile. After we compressed images and cleaned up unused plugins, it loaded in two seconds. Inquiries jumped the same week.
2. The Mobile Monster
Over half of all web traffic now comes from mobile devices, yet some sites still feel like they were built for desktop only. Small buttons, unreadable text, and off-screen content are instant dealbreakers.
Why it matters:
When users can’t navigate your site on their phone, they move on fast—and rarely come back.
Example: A venue client noticed ticket sales dipping. We redesigned their layout for mobile, made the “Buy Tickets” button thumb-friendly, and conversions bounced back within days.
3. The SEO Poltergeist
SEO mistakes can haunt your site behind the scenes. Missing meta descriptions, broken tags, and duplicate content confuse search engines and bury your pages in the results.
Why it matters:
If search engines can’t understand your site, your customers won’t find it.
Example: A bakery had great visuals but no alt text on its photos. Once we added descriptive image tags, they started ranking for “custom cakes Toronto” in under a month.
4. The Haunted Hosting Plan
Shared hosting may be cheap, but it comes with a price. When other sites on your server spike, yours can crash or crawl. For small businesses, that downtime can mean lost leads or orders.
Why it matters:
Hosting controls speed, uptime, and reliability.
Example: Imago LABS came to us with a site completely offline because their old host hit resource limits. We migrated them to managed hosting, restored their site instantly, and kept their Microsoft 365 email running the entire time.
5. The Ghost Links
Nothing says “abandoned site” like broken links or missing pages. These dead ends frustrate visitors and damage your credibility.
Why it matters:
Each broken link hurts SEO and makes your site feel neglected.
Example: A music social network was full of outdated URLs leading to 404 errors. After fixing redirects and cleaning up old links, their bounce rate dropped significantly.
Final Thoughts
Your website doesn’t need to be haunted by slow speeds or broken links. With a little cleanup, the right hosting, and mobile-first thinking, you can turn a site that’s scaring people away into one that converts visitors into loyal fans and customers.
At Be Loud Media, we help businesses and creatives banish these website monsters and keep things running smoothly all year round.
🎃 Ready to optimize your site before the holidays? Let’s fix it together.
