Nothing on your site is broken, exactly. Pages load, the form works, the phone number is there. But when you look at it next to a competitor’s, yours feels busier and harder to read, and you cannot say why. Usually it is not one big problem. It is a handful of small decisions, each reasonable on the day it was made, that add up.
Most WordPress design mistakes can be fixed in an afternoon from the dashboard, without a redesign. Below are the ones that come up most on small business sites, why each one costs you, and where to put it right in WordPress, for both block themes (edited under Appearance → Editor) and classic themes (edited under Appearance → Customize or the theme’s own options).
Too many fonts
A heading font from the theme, a different one someone picked for the home page, a script font for quotes, and a fourth that came with a page builder widget. Each one was a small choice. Together they make the site look assembled rather than designed, and every extra font file is more for the browser to download.
The fix: choose two typefaces at most, a heading face and a reading face, or let one family do both jobs. Set them once in the site-wide settings, not on individual blocks.
- Block themes: Appearance → Editor → Styles → Typography.
- Classic themes: the Customizer’s typography section, depending on your theme.
- Then go through your main pages and reset any block that has its own font set, so it follows the site-wide choice.
Our guide to changing fonts across WordPress shows each screen step by step.
Colours with no system behind them
Three slightly different blues, a green button on one page and an orange one on another, grey text that is almost white. Visitors cannot tell what is clickable, and the brand feels uncertain.
The fix: settle on a small palette, typically a main brand colour, an accent for buttons, a dark text colour, a light background and one neutral. Save it in the theme’s global palette so it appears as swatches in every colour picker. In block themes this lives in Styles → Colors. Then use the accent colour only for things people can click, and nothing else. That one rule makes buttons and links obvious.
Text that is hard to read
This is the most common of all small business website design mistakes, and the easiest to miss on a large desktop screen. Body text set small and light grey looks elegant to a designer and is a struggle for anyone reading on a phone in sunlight, or anyone whose eyesight is not what it was.
The fix:
- Set body text to a comfortable size; many designers treat 16 pixels as a minimum, and larger is often better.
- Use dark text on a light background. The WCAG accessibility standard sets 4.5 to 1 as the minimum contrast between ordinary text and its background, and any free contrast checker will tell you whether your pair of colours passes.
- Keep lines from running too wide on large screens. In block themes, the content width is set in Styles → Layout; in classic themes, look for a container or content width setting.
- Break long paragraphs. Three or four lines on a phone is plenty.
The home page slider
Rotating sliders were once on every business site. The trouble is that many visitors scroll on before the later slides appear, and the movement makes it harder to read the headline before it changes. Sliders also tend to be heavy and can be awkward on phones.
The fix: replace the slider with one strong opening section: a clear headline that says what you do and where, a short line underneath, one button, and one good photo. The Cover block does this well in the block editor. Our guide to the Cover block for hero sections covers overlay and text contrast. If you have several messages, put them in separate sections down the page instead of stacking them in one rotating box.
Buttons that do not look like buttons
“Learn more” in small text with no background. Five buttons of equal weight side by side. A button whose label is “Submit”. Visitors should never have to guess what to click or what will happen when they do.
The fix:
- Give each section one main action, in your accent colour, with a label that says what happens: “Book a consultation”, “Call us now”, “Get a quote”.
- If you need a second option, style it as an outline button so it is clearly secondary.
- Set button styles once. In block themes, Styles → Blocks, then the Button block, changes every button on the site. In page builders, use their global button settings.
- On phones, make sure buttons are big enough to tap and not packed together.
Our guide to adding a button in WordPress covers phone and WhatsApp links.
A cluttered header
Logo, ten menu items, a phone number, an email address, social icons, a search box, a language switcher and a “Book now” button, all in one row. On a phone, most of it collapses into a menu nobody opens, and on a desktop the eye has nowhere to land.
The fix: keep the header to the logo, five to seven menu items, and one action, usually a phone number or a single button. Move social icons and the email address to the footer. Group related pages under one menu item with a short dropdown instead of listing them all. Where the header is edited depends on your theme and builder; our map of editing headers, footers and menus helps you find it.
Spacing that changes from page to page
When a site is edited by several people over a few years, each section ends up with its own padding and margins. Some sections are cramped, others float in empty space, and nothing lines up.
The fix: use the theme’s spacing settings rather than adjusting every block. Block themes let you set default spacing and block gaps in Styles → Layout, and Group blocks can share the same padding preset. Our guide to site-wide styles in WordPress explains how to change these defaults once and have every page follow.
Other WordPress design mistakes worth a quick check
- Stock photos that could be any business. Real photos of your team, premises or work do more for trust. Our article on real photos versus stock photos weighs the choice.
- Centred paragraphs. Centre a short headline if you like, but long text is easier to read left-aligned.
- Autoplaying video or sound. Let visitors start it themselves.
- A popup the moment the page opens. Visitors have not read anything yet. If you use one, delay it and make it easy to close.
- A phone number that is not a link. On a phone, people expect to tap it. Use a tel: link.
- Animations on every section. Fading and sliding content looks impressive once and slows reading every time after. Most themes and builders let you turn them off.
How to fix these without starting over
Work from the top of the list down. Fonts, colours and text size are site-wide settings, so fixing them once improves every page at the same time. Then tackle the home page, because most visitors see it first. Leave individual pages until last.
Before changing global styles, take a backup, or at least note your current settings, because a site-wide change is also a site-wide risk. Check the result on a phone after each change rather than at the end. If you find yourself fighting the theme on every point, that is a sign the theme may be the problem; our overview of what a WordPress theme controls helps you decide whether it is.
Small, steady improvements like these are a normal part of knowing how to manage a WordPress website well. They are not a redesign, and they should not need one.
Frequently asked questions
How do I see my site the way a customer sees it?
Log out, or open a private browser window, and visit the site on your own phone. Try to do the one thing a customer would do, such as find your prices or call you, without using the menu you already know. Ask someone who has never seen the site to try the same task while you watch quietly.
Do I need a designer to choose my fonts and colours?
Not if you already have a logo and some brand colours. Start from those, keep the theme’s default fonts or pick one plain pairing, and test on a phone. A block theme’s style variations also give you ready-made combinations to start from. A designer earns their fee when you have no brand at all or need a look that stands apart.
Should I change these things myself or wait for a redesign?
Fonts, colours, button styles and header clutter are usually safe to fix yourself through the theme’s settings, after a backup. They make a visible difference straight away. A redesign is worth considering when the theme cannot do what you need, the site is very old, or the structure of pages no longer fits your business.
Are page builders the cause of these design mistakes?
Not on their own. Builders give you more freedom, and more freedom makes it easier to set a new font or colour on each section by hand. The same mistakes happen in the block editor. Whichever tool you use, set fonts, colours and button styles globally and avoid overriding them on individual elements.
Some of these fixes take minutes in the dashboard; others mean adjusting the theme itself so the result stays consistent. The second kind is what our WordPress theme customization service is for, with the work done on a backup or staging copy where possible.
Next in this series: How to Make a Custom 404 Page in WordPress
