5 Common Mistakes New Entrepreneurs Make With Their Online Presence

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Studies show 97% of people check a company’s online presence before going to their website, and just over a tenth (11%) of sites received between 250,001 and 10 million monthly visitors. You can imagine that percentage is made up of your business giants: Nike, Adidas, Sephora, Hubspot, and the really well-known businesses that don’t even need to try to get clicks.

Naturally, new entrepreneurs make many mistakes with their online presence at the beginning. You can’t be an expert at everything straight away, and managing and developing an online presence takes so much time, effort, and consistency.

Below, we’ll look at 5 of the most common mistakes and how to avoid them.

Why an Online Presence Matters

We could create an entirely separate article about why an online presence matters. From website design to social media, we, as shoppers, are primed to judge businesses on our first impression. For consumers, 94% of first impressions are based on website design, and small businesses see between 15 and 50% of revenue growth when they use their websites to engage with customers (Businessdasher).

And the website is only one part of it now. Influencer Marketing Hub data states 89% of consumers will buy from a brand they follow on social media, and 48% of shoppers would check a brand’s social media presence before confirming a purchase.

And we don’t need to keep giving you data. It’s logical. But we will give you one more statistic: one in three consumers use social media to learn about or discover new products, services, or brands (Porch Group Media).

You can’t just expect customers to fall into your lap. Social media, in particular, literally sets you up for helping consumers become website traffic. You’ll notice that with TikTok and Instagram, most businesses and influencers have used the link in bio tool to, as the name suggests, insert a link in the bio section of their social media page so customers can easily click through to a company’s web page or promotional page. For us, Hopp by Wix is the best Linktree alternative.

Your online presence matters because that’s where your customers are.

Neglecting Social Media Accounts (All of Them)

Having a social media account isn’t the same as using it. Setting up an Instagram page and then leaving it untouched for six months doesn’t do you any favors. It looks spammy and untrustworthy, and your traffic won’t like it.

Social platforms reward consistency. So if you’re only posting “once when you remember,” you’re invisible.

And it’s not just Instagram. TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, even Pinterest—if your audience is there, you should be active. Neglecting one account while constantly posting on another can make your brand look lopsided.

Side note: No, you don’t have to be everywhere. But if you are on a platform, you need to post regularly.

There are so many incredible and evolving ways to engage with your audience on social media. At the beginning of the year, we had brands jumping on the ‘Ballerina Cappucina’ trend that escalated out of control to Tung Tung Tung Sahur and beyond, birthing what we now know as brain rot.

Call it brain rot all you want, but it was excellent marketing that paid off for a lot of businesses that decided to get involved, turning their products into a brain-rot version to gain attention.

Not Having a Clear Digital Strategy

Too many entrepreneurs wing it. They post when they feel inspired, run an ad because they saw a competitor do it, and hope traffic magically flows to their website.

It doesn’t.

A digital strategy doesn’t need to be 50 pages long. It just needs clarity. Who’s your audience? What platforms do they use? What’s your goal—brand awareness, direct sales, or lead generation? Every post, ad, and email should tie back to that.

Think of it as your business wouldn’t ship products without a supply chain plan. Why run your online presence without a strategy?

Follow this link for a good blog about creating your first digital strategy.

Lacking Any Consistency

Consistency isn’t just posting frequency. It’s the visuals, the tone, and the way you post everywhere online.

If your TikTok looks fun and casual, but your website reads like a law textbook, customers get confused. According to Lucidpress, consistent branding across all channels can increase revenue by 23%.

Here’s what consistency looks like:

• The same logo across platforms.
• A tone of voice that feels familiar, whether on LinkedIn or Instagram.
• Regular updates so customers know you’re alive.

Inconsistency simply won’t grow your online presence, and it’s almost pointless. There are excellent apps you can use, like Hootsuite, that let you schedule posts for publishing in advance. You could spend one afternoon creating multiple posts and spread them out across the next week, and you won’t have to dedicate daily time to it.

Terrible Branding (Business and Personal)

Bad branding is awful for a business’s reputation. It’s not just about an ugly logo. It’s everything that tells people who you are and why you matter.

And this applies to both business branding and personal branding. Customers want to know the face behind the business. 43% of a company’s market value is tied to the CEO’s reputation (Kurogo). If your business looks polished but your LinkedIn looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2018, there’s a disconnect.

Examples of terrible branding:

• Logos that look pixelated on mobile.
• Websites with five different fonts and ten different colors.
• CEOs posting stiff, corporate jargon on LinkedIn when their business claims to be fun and approachable.

Good branding doesn’t have to be expensive. Tools like Canva make it easy. What matters is that it feels deliberate, not thrown together.

Poor Website User Experience Designs

If someone clicks on your bio link and lands on your site, you either win or lose them, depending on what they see.

Bad UX design is one of the fastest ways to drive people away. 53% of mobile users will leave a site that takes more than three seconds to load (Google). 88% of shoppers say they won’t return after a bad user experience (AWS). A new business can’t grow with numbers like that.

Common UX mistakes:

• Slow load speeds because of massive uncompressed images.
• Confusing navigation that hides products three clicks deep.
• Websites that look fine on desktop but fall apart on mobile.

Do a quick test. Go onto your website on your phone and pretend you’re a new customer. Can you find a product, add it to the cart, and check out in under a minute? If not, implement fixes.

These mistakes are easy to fix. Growing a business is full of mistakes, but, unless you make some reputational damage recovery-type mistake, errors with your online presence are merely teething issues and relatively easy to fix. The main thing is that you’re actually actively trying to grow your online presence.

Q&A

How did you manage to overcome the issues you faced when building your online presence?

I would say with persistence, perseverance, and consistency. The main issue I faced was not seeing my click-through rates increase. But as I improved the quality of my website and focused on regular posting and customer interactions on my social media pages, I started to see improvements.

What advice do you have for someone who is in the process of building and publishing a website?

This is the first step for many new entrepreneurs. My advice would be to find a high-quality template for a professional look, don’t overcrowd the website, and if you’re selling products, invest in professional photos and videos to upload to the website. And always test! I always make sure my website is responsive on all devices.

Do you have any final words of advice for new entrepreneurs building an online presence?

I would say to have fun with it. Once your website is live, most of the online presence you build is through social media and maybe Google Ads. Follow trends, make your business relevant, and enjoy learning about social media and getting the most out of it. Don’t see it as a chore.

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