Most of your visitors are on a phone. A site that merely fits on a smaller screen isn't the same as one designed for how people actually use it there.
Nearly every site is technically responsive now. The difference is whether the mobile version was designed or just squeezed until it stopped overflowing.
Desktop design, made smaller
Designed for the phone
The version on the left passes a mobile-friendly test. It will still lose people, because passing a test means nothing is broken, not that anything is easy. That gap is what this page is about.
These come up on almost every site we look at, and none of them show up when you check the site on a laptop.
Links and buttons sized for a mouse pointer. Fingers are far less precise, and hitting the wrong thing repeatedly is how people give up.
The fixAnything tappable gets real size and spacing around it.
The wrong keyboard for the field, labels that vanish once you start typing, and a submit button hidden behind the keyboard.
The fixRight keyboard per field, labels that stay, fewer fields.
One element wider than the screen makes the whole page slide. Usually a table, an image, or a fixed-width block nobody checked.
The fixFind the offender and contain it. Tables scroll on their own.
A newsletter overlay with a close button off screen or too small to hit. On a phone this doesn't annoy people, it removes them.
The fixDifferent rules on mobile, or nothing at all.
Sections switched off on mobile to tidy the layout. If most visitors are on phones, that content effectively doesn't exist.
The fixReorder and condense rather than hide.
Desktop-sized images and scripts on a phone connection. It looks fine on office broadband and is slow everywhere else.
The fixRight-sized images, and less loading before first paint.
Worth checking your own numbers before assuming any of this applies. If your analytics shows most visitors on mobile but most enquiries from desktop, that gap is usually one of the six above, and it's measurable rather than a matter of opinion.
Phones are held in one hand more often than not. The bottom of the screen is easy to reach and the top corners aren't, which quietly decides what gets tapped.
Resizing a browser window catches layout problems and misses almost everything else that makes a phone different.
Actual phones, including an older one and a small one. Browser tools can't reproduce how a real device feels or how heavy a page is on it.
Tested throttled, not on office broadband. Plenty of your visitors are on a train or a weak signal, and that's when weight shows.
Every important action attempted with a thumb while holding the phone normally. It finds problems that look fine in a screenshot.
Sideways too, plus larger text settings. Accessibility settings break more layouts than any device size does.
Phone layout first, then outward. Doing it the other way round is what produces the version on the left further up this page.
Your own analytics, showing what share of visits and enquiries come from each device. It decides where the effort goes.
The narrowest screen first, which forces decisions about what actually matters instead of leaving them until later.
Tablet and desktop, adding space and side by side layouts where they genuinely help rather than because there's room.
On real devices before launch, and again after, since a phone problem found in month three has been costing you the whole time.
Maybe not. Responsive is the baseline now and most sites clear it. The question is whether the mobile version converts, which is a different thing entirely.
The check takes ten minutes: compare your enquiry rate from mobile against desktop. If mobile is much lower, there's something to fix. If they're close, spend the money elsewhere.
No. Separate mobile sites were a workaround from a decade ago and they create two sites to maintain, two sets of content that drift apart, and search complications.
One site that adapts is the answer, and has been for a long time. If someone is proposing a separate mobile site, ask why.
Usually yes, and it's often the better option. Most mobile problems are a handful of specific issues rather than a fundamentally wrong design.
Where a rebuild genuinely is the answer is when the site is on a foundation that fights every fix. We'd tell you which situation you're in after looking, not before.
Yes. Google judges your site primarily by its mobile version, so if content is hidden or the mobile page is slow, that's what gets assessed.
The commercial reason still matters more than the ranking one. A site that ranks well and loses people on arrival hasn't solved anything. More on the search side under technical SEO.
Handled, and usually a small share of traffic. Tablets sit between the two layouts and mostly work if phone and desktop are both done properly.
Worth checking your own numbers rather than assuming. Some businesses have a genuinely high tablet share and it changes where attention goes.
Fixing specific problems on an existing site is usually days rather than weeks, depending on how many there are and how the site is built.
A full redesign with mobile as the starting point runs to the normal design timeline, which is on the web design page.
Every site we build is designed this way as standard, so this is only a separate job when we're fixing a site we didn't make. Pricing sits on the main web design page.
Other design services
Thirty minutes on where mobile visitors are dropping off and what's worth fixing first.
Or email hello@culmen.digital