Desktop conversion is fine. Mobile conversion is terrible. The site was designed for a 15-inch screen and falls apart on a 5-inch one. Form fields cropped. Tap targets too small. Wrong keyboard types triggered by form inputs. Text too small to read without pinch-zooming. Buttons buried below 3 scrolls. The site that looks fine on the agency's design review monitor is unusable on the buyer's phone — and 60-70% of contractor and SMB traffic is mobile.
The diagnostic
- Open the site on YOUR phone. If you have to pinch-zoom anywhere, the type is too small.
- Try to fill out the form on your phone. Does the keyboard adapt to each field? Does autofill work?
- Tap the CTA buttons. Does your thumb land on them comfortably?
- Scroll the homepage. Does the hero CTA require more than one swipe to reach?
- Test in landscape orientation. Does anything break?
The fixes
- Test the site on a real phone, not just dev tools. Use yours, your spouse's, an old phone in a drawer.
- Single-column layouts. Stack everything that's side-by-side on desktop.
- Tap targets minimum 44x44px (Apple guideline) or 48x48px (Google guideline). Buttons can't be tiny.
- Form input types correct (tel, email, number) so the keyboard adapts. Default text keyboard on a phone field is a 15% conversion drop.
- Type size minimum 16px (anything smaller triggers iOS zoom-on-focus, which is a UX nightmare).
- Hero CTA visible above the fold on a phone. Not buried below 3 scrolls.
- Test on slow 3G connections. Mobile users often have poor signal. Lazy-load below-fold images.
Why mobile gets ignored
Designers and developers work on desktop. The site looks great on the design review screen. Mobile is treated as an afterthought — a responsive media query. That's how desktop-first sites end up with broken mobile experiences. The fix is reversing the order: design for mobile first, then expand UP to desktop. The discipline matters more than the methodology.
Pairs with the mobile conversion topic and the mobile form design sub-topic.
Want a second look at your site?
If you want a second look at how this applies to your site — drop your URL into the free website audit and I'll tell you exactly where this applies. The audit runs server-side, checks 19 specific signals across SEO, performance, mobile, and accessibility, and surfaces a score with prioritized fixes. No sales pitch attached — the score is yours either way, whether or not you ever talk to me.
If you'd rather talk it through with a real person, send me a note and we'll set up 30 minutes. I'll come prepared — I'll have already looked at your site before the call, and the conversation starts from what I see, not from a generic discovery script. The fastest way to know whether what's described above is the right next move for your specific situation.
