Your Company Website on a Phone: What Often Gets Missed

Many company owners check their website on a laptop in the office. It looks tidy, the photos are large, everything seems fine. But your potential buyers often open it differently: from a link sent on WhatsApp, on a phone, while waiting for a meeting or standing on a project site.

On a small screen, problems you can't see on a laptop become obvious. Buttons are hard to tap, tables get cut off, forms are tiring. This article covers the things most often missed, and how to check them yourself.

Why the phone view matters

There are two reasons. The first is your visitors. Open Google Analytics or whichever analytics tool you use, and look at the split of visitors by device type. The figure differs for every business, so it is better to look at your own data than to guess.

The second is Google. Google uses the mobile version of your website for indexing and ranking. Google also asks for the mobile version to have the same content as the desktop version. So if information is hidden on phones to keep the layout short, Google may not read it either.

Buttons and links that are too small

A finger is less precise than a mouse pointer. Small buttons packed close together make visitors tap the wrong one, and then get annoyed. The WCAG 2.2 accessibility guidelines set a minimum of 24 × 24 CSS pixels for touch targets, or enough spacing between them. That is a lower limit, not an ideal size. Main buttons such as "Request a Quote" should be much bigger and easy to reach with a thumb.

A few small things that often get forgotten:

• Phone numbers you can't tap. If a number is written as plain text, visitors have to copy it by hand. With a tel: link, the phone offers to call straight away.
• Menus that go too deep. A three-level menu that works well with a mouse becomes awkward on a phone. Keep the menu short, and make sure important pages are one or two taps away.
• Floating buttons covering the content. A WhatsApp button, a chat button and a "back to top" button can pile up in a corner and cover text or other buttons.

Specification tables and documents that don't fit

Manufacturer and distributor websites usually have specification tables with many columns: code, size, material, weight, packaging. On a laptop the table is readable. On a phone, columns get cut off, or the whole page can be dragged sideways and the layout falls apart.

There are a few ways out. The table can scroll sideways inside its own box while the page stays still. For short tables, each row can be shown as a small card on phones. For very large tables, show only the most important columns and offer the full datasheet as a download.

Be careful, too, with information that only lives inside a large PDF. On a phone, visitors have to download the whole file before they can read a single line.

Forms that are tiring on a phone

Typing on a phone is slower and more error-prone. Every extra field on a quote request form is one more reason to give up halfway.

• Ask only for what you need. Name, company, contact details and what they need are usually enough for a first contact. Other details can be asked when you follow up.
• Use the right field types. Email and phone fields set up correctly make the phone show a suitable keyboard: one with the @ sign for email, and a number pad for phone numbers.
• Allow autofill. With autocomplete settings, the browser can fill in the name, email, phone and company name already saved on the visitor's phone.
• Clear error messages, right next to the field that is wrong, not at the top of the page where nobody can see them.

Pop-ups and banners that cover the screen

A pop-up that covers part of a laptop screen can cover the whole of a phone screen. If its close button is small, visitors leave the website instead.

Google itself advises against covering the whole page with a pop-up, and recommends banners that take up only a small part of the screen. According to Google, intrusive elements like these make it harder for search engines to understand the page, and can erode visitors' trust. The exception is a notice that is legally required.

Speed on a mobile connection

A laptop in the office is usually on a stable connection. A phone on the road isn't always. Large product photos, background videos and too many extra scripts are felt most here.

Google uses three Core Web Vitals. The "good" thresholds are: the main content appears within 2.5 seconds, the page responds to a tap within 200 milliseconds, and layout shift stays at 0.1 or less. These are assessed separately for mobile and desktop. You can check them for free in PageSpeed Insights, which reports on both mobile and desktop.

How to check it yourself in 15 minutes

1. Open the website on your own phone, on mobile data, not the office Wi-Fi.
2. Try the tasks a buyer usually does: find a product, open its specifications, then send a quote request.
3. Tap the phone number and the WhatsApp button. Do they work straight away?
4. Open the page with the longest table. Can the page be dragged sideways?
5. Check whether any floating button or pop-up covers the content.
6. Put the website address into PageSpeed Insights and look at the mobile results.
7. Ask one person outside the team, an acquaintance for example, to do the same. They will find things you didn't notice.

It isn't enough for a company website to "open" on a phone. Buyers must be able to find a product, read the specifications and contact you without zooming in.

Read also why a company website is slow, how to build a quote request form and how to add a WhatsApp button without getting in the way. If you want a website that works well on phones from the start, see our website services.