A business’s website is one of the most important investments a business can make. Yet, across the globe and in Ghana, too many business websites fail to deliver value. The problem is not whether a company has a website, but whether that website generates a positive return on investment.
Industry data shows how serious the problem is. HubSpot reported in 2024 that 70% of small business websites fail to generate meaningful leads or conversions. Studies estimate that 80% to 90% of e-commerce startups collapse within the first few years, often with poorly designed websites playing a key role. A separate study found that 75% of small businesses waste money on SEO due to poor strategy and lack of expertise. This comes as no surprise to me; we recently got a Google knowledge graph for our brand keyword, and it’s been after six years of consistent off-page optimisation.
Forrester observed that 66% of users abandon websites because of poor user experience, such as slow load times or confusing navigation. These are not minor problems. They reveal why so much money is wasted on digital platforms that look good but do little to support growth.
I was reviewing cosmetics shop websites in Ghana, and to be honest, the quality out there, even for the biggest local retailers, was concerning. Many of the sites were not properly maintained; you could see broken links, bad UI designs. It’s as if some amateur designer just put up a theme, loaded a bunch of products, took his money, and disappeared.
The Ghanaian SME Context
In Ghana, SMEs make up over 80% of employment and contribute about 60% to GDP. They are the backbone of the economy but face steep challenges in digital adoption.
For many years, SMEs operated without integrating the internet into their operations. But COVID-19 changed that reality. Surveys show that 100% of Ghanaian firms increased their level of digitisation during the pandemic, leading to improvements in service quality, productivity, and client engagement. This means you’re unlikely to find any business in Ghana that’s not online. Importantly, most companies intend to maintain these digital changes long-term.
The e-commerce sector in Ghana is projected to reach US$1.04 billion by 2025, supported by nearly 70% internet penetration and the dominance of mobile money transactions. However, adoption is uneven. Urban businesses may have some online presence, but many rural SMEs still have none. High website development costs, poor internet connectivity, and inadequate training hold back progress.
At the same time, consumer trust is fragile. Many buyers fear fraud, non-delivery, and data misuse, while delivery logistics remain a serious issue due to incomplete addressing systems.
These challenges mean that SMEs often spend money on websites that fail to function as credible, trusted, and profitable business assets.
Why Business Websites Fail
Websites commonly fail for a combination of reasons. Many SMEs choose the cheapest possible solution, which results in inflexible, slow, and poorly designed websites. Others neglect the importance of mobile responsiveness, even though most Ghanaians access the internet via mobile. Weak calls to action, poor design consistency, and a lack of trust signals such as SSL certificates and customer testimonials push potential buyers away.
SEO is another neglected area. Businesses may have beautiful websites, but remain invisible on Google. Without optimised content, structured metadata, and localised strategies, potential customers cannot find them. Even when businesses spend on marketing, they often lack proper analytics integration, leaving them unable to track what works and what doesn’t.
Maintenance is another weakness. Many SMEs launch websites but fail to update them, creating broken features, security risks, and outdated content. And I totally understand this; as a business owner, your job is to run your business, right? Not maintaining code, blogging, or optimising articles.
Some business owners also lose control of their digital assets because they hand everything to vendors without clear contracts. When disputes arise, they realise they do not even own their domain or hosting account. There seems to be no end to this particular problem. Before we continue, never allow anyone to purchase a domain for you with their account, no matter how much you trust them. You can thank me later.
So in short, business websites fail because they lack strategy, planning, and professional execution.
Do you know who I blame? I blame the business owners, not the designers. My reason is simple: the reason you need a website is because you want to take your business online — better still, you want to automate your marketing, customer acquisition, and customer service with as much digitalisation as possible. Unfortunately, many hire someone who knows nothing about the very business he is supposed to help automate.
You don’t just need a website builder; you need an online marketer. If all they can do is build a flashy website, you’ll soon be added to the statistics of failed website design projects.
Customer Success, Not Just Satisfaction
In 2022, I realised most of these things I am sharing with you. Our web design clients weren’t just looking for websites. In fact, many of them didn’t even care about it. What they wanted was to market their businesses online, attract leads, grow their revenue, increase their visibility, and establish a position in their markets.
Customer satisfaction is about making the client happy. In web design, that means delivering a beautiful, functional website they’re proud to show off. But customer success goes beyond satisfaction. It’s about helping the client achieve real, measurable growth.
At EnspireFX Websites, we understand that while a visually impressive website is important, it’s rarely enough on its own. What truly drives business success is a deep understanding of the client’s industry and customer acquisition dynamics — knowing how their customers think, where they are, and how they make purchasing decisions.
And we build that strategy into the websites we create, so our clients don’t just get a pretty online presence; they get a growth-focused digital platform designed to help them make money and scale. This is what sets EnspireFX Websites apart. We offer more than web design; we offer digital solutions.
So the next time someone calls you offering to build your website, ask them whether they know your business’s customer journey. If they don’t, please turn down the offer politely, for the sake of your pocket. Because all you’ll get will be a flashy site — if you’re lucky — that brings no business.
How SMEs Can Avoid Web Design Failure
My advice to SMEs is clear: treat your website as a business asset, not an afterthought. A website is not about appearances. It must function, build trust, and generate measurable results. That requires proper planning, professional execution, and ongoing management.
At EnspireFX Websites, we designed our services to address these common points of failure:
- We build custom, mobile-first websites that load fast, are easy to navigate, and guide customers from interest to conversion.
- We integrate trust signals like SSL security, authentic customer reviews, corporate emails, and secure payment systems that support local methods such as mobile money, Visa, and MasterCard.
- We ensure clients own their digital assets. Domains, hosting accounts, analytics tools, and software licenses are always in the client’s name, with clear contracts that protect their rights.
- We deliver SEO-optimised websites with Schema Markup and localised strategies, while also training clients (such as newsroom editors, shop managers) on content optimisation and metadata.
- We provide one year of free maintenance with our SME package, covering updates, backups, and support, alongside free hosting and a domain (courtesy of our sister company StellerHost).
- We emphasise data-driven decisions. Every site we build comes with Google Analytics 4 and Search Console integration so clients can track user behaviour and improve performance over time.
- We believe in client education. Business owners must understand how their website fits into a larger strategy. Our role is not just to deliver a product but to equip clients with knowledge for long-term success.
This has largely been the reason we have been doing so well. We are now reviewed by clients as the best web design company in Ghana, and it’s the same refrain on multiple review sites.
The high failure rate of business websites worldwide and in Ghana is not inevitable. It happens because businesses view websites as a one-time cost rather than a long-term investment. In Ghana, SMEs are central to economic growth, so wasting money on ineffective websites does more harm to the economy in general.
We at EnspireFX Websites have made it our mission to help SMEs avoid these traps.
About The Author
Rev. Dennis Gyamfi Bediako is the CEO of EnspireFX Websites, a business web design company based in Accra, Ghana. Contact: 0550919202; Email: [email protected]
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