10 Website Errors That Show Up on Mobile but Not on Your Computer
You pull up your website on your phone to quickly check something, and it hits you like a small betrayal. The text is overlapping. A button isn’t clickable. A whole section of content has disappeared. You think, “Wait, that’s not how it looks on my laptop.”
That feeling, right there, is the moment a lot of women solopreneurs realize their website might be working against them on mobile, even though it looks fine when they check it at their desk. It’s frustrating because you’ve already invested in the website. You already showed up. And now, potentially, people are trying to reach you and running into little roadblocks.
The good news? Mobile errors are fixable. And once you know what to look for, you’ll start seeing opportunities to make your site work better for the people who visit it. Most people browse on their phones now. It’s not a nice-to-have anymore, it’s the actual thing.
Let me walk you through the 10 mobile errors I see most often, and what they’re really telling you.
1. Text That’s Too Small to Read Without Squinting
On your desktop, your body copy might sit at 16 pixels and look perfectly readable. On mobile, that same text shrinks down to something that requires actual eyestrain to decode. Nobody’s going to sit there and pinch and zoom to read your whole homepage. They’ll just leave.
The opportunity here is simple, your mobile font sizes need to be intentionally bigger. This isn’t about padding your content, it’s about respecting the person on the other end. A lot of business owners I talk to don’t realize they can set different font sizes for mobile and desktop. You can. I make it easy to do this in whatever platform you’re using.
Check your website right now on your phone. Can you read a paragraph of your body text without zooming in? If the answer is no, this is your first mobile opportunity.
2. Buttons and Links That Are Impossible to Tap
This one drives me crazy because it’s such a simple fix, and yet I see it constantly. A button that looks perfectly clickable on desktop becomes this tiny target on mobile. Or the spacing between two links is so tight that you accidentally tap the wrong one.
This is called “touch target size,” and here’s the rule, your clickable elements need to be at least 44 pixels by 44 pixels on mobile. That’s roughly the size of an adult fingertip. When buttons are smaller than that, people get frustrated. Frustrated people don’t stick around.
If someone can’t easily click your “Book a Call” button or your “Contact Me” link on their phone, you’re creating unnecessary friction. That’s an opportunity to redesign those buttons so they’re mobile-friendly and actually tappable.
3. Images That Are Cut Off or Distorted
You spent time finding the perfect hero image for your homepage. It looks stunning on desktop, full-width and perfectly composed. Then you check it on mobile, and half the important part of the image is cropped out. Or worse, it’s stretched and distorted.
This happens because images need to be responsive, meaning they need to resize and recompose themselves depending on the screen size. If your website builder isn’t handling this automatically, you’ll need to set different image crops or aspect ratios for mobile.
The opportunity? Use images that work well when they’re vertical and narrower. Think about what matters in that image, and make sure the important stuff stays visible even when the frame gets smaller.
4. Navigation That’s Impossible to Use
Your beautiful horizontal navigation menu that stretches across the top of your desktop site turns into a disaster on mobile. The text overlaps, the links don’t have space, or the whole menu just disappears and you have no way to navigate.
Every mobile site needs what’s called a “hamburger menu,” that three-line icon that opens and closes a vertical navigation menu. If your website doesn’t do this automatically, that’s a mobile opportunity. Your visitors should be able to get around your site easily, whether they’re on a phone, tablet, or desktop.
5. Forms That Are Too Wide for the Screen
You’ve got a contact form on your website, and on desktop it looks great. Two columns, nice spacing, professional. On mobile, the form is so wide that you have to scroll horizontally to see the whole thing, and filling it out feels like a pain.
Forms on mobile need to stack into a single column, and the input fields need to be full-width. This makes them actually useable. A lot of business owners don’t realize how much friction a confusing form creates. If someone has to work to contact you, they might not bother.
6. Content That’s Cramped or Has No Breathing Room
On desktop, your content has nice margins and whitespace around it. Everything feels open and easy to read. On mobile, that same content is crammed right to the edges of the screen with no padding, no breathing room. It feels claustrophobic.
Mobile content needs more whitespace, not less. Tighter screens make everything feel crowded faster. You need generous margins, bigger line spacing, and more space between sections. This isn’t about wasting space, it’s about making the reading experience feel calm instead of suffocating.
7. Videos That Don’t Resize or Play Properly
You embedded a YouTube video to introduce yourself or show a client testimonial. On desktop, it plays fine and looks great. On mobile, the video player either doesn’t resize (so it overflows the screen), or it’s so small that nobody can see what’s happening.
Videos need to be embedded responsively, meaning they automatically resize to fit whatever screen size is viewing them. If your website builder doesn’t do this automatically, you’ll need to use an embed code that supports responsive sizing.
This is an opportunity to make sure your video content actually gets watched, instead of being skipped because it’s unwatchable on mobile.
8. Overlays and Pop-ups That Take Over the Entire Screen
You’ve got an email signup popup that looks good on desktop, capturing attention without being intrusive. On mobile, that same popup takes up the entire screen, covers all your content, and has a tiny X button that’s nearly impossible to close without accidentally clicking the actual link.
Pop-ups on mobile need to be intentional and easy to dismiss. The close button needs to be big and obvious. The form needs to be short. And honestly, many women find that they convert better when they’re less aggressive about it. Give people room to breathe, and they’re more likely to actually engage.
9. Tables and Data That Don’t Stack Properly
You’ve got a pricing table, a feature comparison, or some other structured data on your site. On desktop, it’s in a nice, organized table format. On mobile, the table is either tiny and unreadable, or it doesn’t fit on the screen and forces horizontal scrolling.
The opportunity here is to restructure how that data displays on mobile. Tables often need to be converted into a different format, like cards or lists, so they’re actually readable on a phone.
10. Footer Content That’s Crammed or Missing
Your footer works fine on desktop. It’s got your contact info, social links, copyright, maybe a newsletter signup. On mobile, the footer is either so compressed that nothing is readable, or key information is hidden under a “more” link that most people never click.
Mobile footers need to be reorganized for the narrower screen. Sometimes that means stacking everything vertically. Sometimes it means prioritizing what actually matters and simplifying what’s there.
The Bigger Picture: Mobile First Is Not Optional
Here’s the real talk, your website should be designed mobile-first, not mobile-friendly-as-an-afterthought. Mobile-first means you design for the smallest screen first, then expand up to desktop. It’s a different mindset.
In my experience, women solopreneurs who check their websites only on desktop are shocked when they finally look at them on mobile. Not because their web designer was careless, but because the design process didn’t prioritize mobile from the start.
When you’re building or redesigning your website, make sure mobile is part of the conversation from day one. Check every page on your phone. Test every button, every form, every image. If something feels clunky or hard to use, it probably is.
And here’s the thing, all of these issues are fixable. They’re opportunities to make your website work better for the people who are actually trying to reach you. Your website should fit you and work for you, and that includes working seamlessly on every device.
If you’re not sure whether your website has any of these mobile issues, take 20 minutes right now and go through it on your phone. Click every button. Try to fill out a form. Read some content. Does it feel easy? Does it feel like you?
If you’re finding mobile errors and you’re not sure how to fix them, that’s exactly what I help women with at Fairy Godmother of Tech. Sometimes it’s a simple code fix. Sometimes it’s a bigger redesign. Either way, mobile should work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my website look fine on my computer but broken on my phone?
Your computer screen is much larger than a phone screen, so CSS (the styling code that makes your website look a certain way) might be hiding or shrinking things that don’t fit on mobile. If your website wasn’t designed mobile-first, it probably wasn’t tested on mobile screens during development. That’s an opportunity to make it work better across all devices.
Do I need to hire a developer to fix mobile errors?
It depends on the error and your website platform. Some fixes are simple CSS changes that your web designer can make in minutes. Others might require restructuring how content displays on mobile, which takes a bit more work. Either way, it’s absolutely fixable and worth doing, because most of your visitors are probably on mobile.
Should I make a separate mobile version of my website?
No. You want one website that responds beautifully to all screen sizes, not two separate sites. That’s called a responsive website, and it’s standard now. Your website builder should handle this automatically if it’s built right.
How often should I test my website on mobile?
Whenever you make changes, you should test on mobile. And honestly, I recommend checking your site on your phone at least once a month, just to stay aware of how your visitors are actually experiencing it. It only takes 10 minutes and it catches a lot of small stuff before it becomes a problem.
If your website no longer feels like you, let’s talk about it – Book a Free Website Clarity Call with Beth →