The viewport tag is missing
It is one line in the page code, with the value width=device-width, initial-scale=1. Without it, the phone shows the desktop page shrunk to the width of the screen. That’s where the tiny text and the zooming come from.
Problem: mobile
Your website is not mobile friendly. That’s exactly where customers look for you.
If your website is not mobile friendly, most of your visitors see a broken page, because a phone is where people look for a tradesperson, a restaurant or an appointment. It may look perfect on your computer. On theirs, it doesn’t.
Sound familiar?
- The text is so small you have to pinch to zoom before you can read it.
- The page slides sideways and you have to drag it left and right.
- Buttons and links sit so close together that you always tap the wrong one.
- A popup covers the whole screen, and the close button is tiny or off the edge.
- Your phone number can’t be tapped: customers have to copy it by hand.
Why your site breaks on a phone
Fixed widths
A container set to 1,200 pixels, a wide table, an image or map with a fixed width. A phone screen is much narrower, so the page spills over and you get sideways scrolling.
Popups over the content
Cookie banner, newsletter window, chat and special offer, all at once. On a small screen there is nothing left of the page. Google explicitly advises against intrusive popups that cover the content on mobile.
Tap targets that are too small
A finger is not a mouse pointer. Tiny links packed together and menus that only open on mouse hover don’t work on a phone. Google recommends tap targets of about 48 × 48 pixels.
A design made only for desktop
Older sites were built for big screens. And in website builders, the mobile version easily breaks when you move something on the desktop version and don’t check it afterwards.
What you can do yourself, step by step
1. Test on real phones
Open your site on your own phone and on a different type, Android and iPhone. Follow a customer’s path: find the service, tap the number, send the form. Turn the phone sideways too. Write down everything that annoys you.
2. Check in Chrome on your computer
Open your site in Chrome, press F12, then Ctrl+Shift+M (Cmd+Shift+M on a Mac). Pick different phones from the list and scroll through every page. If a horizontal scrollbar appears, something is too wide.
3. Look for the viewport tag
Press Ctrl+U to view the page source and search for the word viewport. If it isn’t there, the theme is very old. Some themes can add it in their settings, but usually it’s a sign the theme needs replacing.
4. Tame the popups
Show the newsletter window on desktop only, or as a small bar at the bottom, never full screen. The cookie banner should leave the page visible and have large, easy-to-tap buttons. Remove the chat if nobody answers it.
5. Make what matters tappable
Turn your phone number into a call link (tel:), so customers can call with one tap. Main buttons should be large, with space around them. Body text should be around 16 pixels.
6. Rein in wide elements
Images must not be wider than the screen. Put wide tables in a box that scrolls on its own, or turn them into lists. In website builders such as Wix, open the mobile editor and check every section.
When it’s worth calling a pro
If the viewport tag is missing, the theme is old, or every fix breaks something else, patching costs more than it solves. I design my sites for phones first and test them on real phones before launch, with a mobile PageSpeed score of 90+ guaranteed in writing. A new site starts from €499; for more pages, the Business package is €1,499. If you want to keep your content and just give it new clothes, have a look at a website redesign.
Frequently asked questions
Does Google care how my site looks on a phone?
Yes. Google indexes and ranks sites mainly based on their mobile version. If content is missing on the phone, or the page is hard to use, that counts.
What happened to Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test?
Google retired the Mobile-Friendly Test and the Mobile Usability report in Search Console in December 2023. Today you check with Chrome on your computer, with PageSpeed Insights and, above all, with real phones.
Do I need a separate mobile site?
No. A responsive site adapts by itself to every screen, from a phone to a large monitor. It’s also the approach Google recommends. Two separate sites mean twice the upkeep.
Wouldn’t an app be better?
For most businesses, almost never. Customers search on Google; they won’t install an app to find your opening hours or phone number. A website that works well on a phone does the same job.
Other common problems
“Not secure” warning in the browser
→Website traffic but no leads
→Business not showing on Google Maps
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Written by Raul Gabriel Nagy
Founder of RAGANA Studio, web designer since 2009. I hand-build websites and online shops for businesses in Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany, and run my own online shop, raganadesign.shop. My story →
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