The Last Time You Checked Your Website on Your Phone, Was It Today?

You know that moment when you’re in a coffee shop and someone asks what you do, and you pull out your phone to show them your website, and you watch their face as the page loads sideways, or the buttons don’t work, or the whole thing looks like it was designed in 2009?

That’s the feeling I’m talking about. That micro-moment of embarrassment followed by the quick apology: “Sorry, my site’s not great on mobile.”

Here’s what I want you to know: you’re not alone, and it’s absolutely an opportunity to fix.

The truth is, most women solopreneurs I talk to haven’t actually opened their own website on their phone in months. Maybe longer. You built it (or had it built), it looked good on your computer, and then life happened. You moved on to running your business. You weren’t thinking about how it appeared on a 5.5-inch screen.

Then one day, you need to show it to someone, or you Google yourself out of curiosity, and boom. There’s that sinking feeling. The one that says, “This doesn’t look like me anymore. This doesn’t look like someone I’d hire.”

The Mobile Check You Keep Forgetting to Do

Let me be direct: if you haven’t looked at your website on your phone in the last 30 days, there’s something there waiting for you. I guarantee it.

Your website is probably your first impression with new clients. And a lot of people are meeting you on their phones first. They’re not sitting at a desk with a monitor. They’re scrolling while their kid is at soccer practice. They’re looking between your site and three competitors. They’re on a 4G connection that might be spotty.

That’s your moment. And if your moment is broken on mobile, you’re losing people before they even know what you offer.

I see this all the time. A woman has invested in a website, she’s proud of it, and then mobile happened. The buttons are too small. The text is too cramped. Images don’t fit. The navigation collapses into a menu that’s impossible to tap on the first try. The contact form is nightmare fuel.

Or worse, the site loads so slowly on mobile that half your visitors give up before anything even appears on screen.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

Here’s the thing: you’ve been growing. You’ve gotten better at what you do. Your voice has gotten stronger. Your confidence has grown. Your business has evolved.

But your website is still showing up as the old version of you.

That disconnect is real, and it matters. Because when someone lands on your site from their phone, the experience they have in the first 10 seconds is going to tell them something about who you are and whether they trust you. If your website looks broken or outdated or doesn’t work on their device, they’re going to assume your business runs the same way.

That’s not fair, but it’s true.

A lot of business owners I talk to say the same thing: “I know my site isn’t great on mobile, but I’m working on it.” But then they don’t actually look at it, so it never gets fixed. It’s like saying, “I know my shoes don’t fit” while continuing to wear them every single day.

The opportunity here is simple: you get to decide how your business shows up. Not in some abstract, aspirational way. I mean literally. Right now. On the device where most of your clients are actually going to find you.

What to Actually Check When You Open Your Website on Your Phone

I want to make this easy for you. Here’s exactly what you’re going to do today.

Pull out your phone. Not a tablet, not a computer. Your actual phone. The one you carry around.

Open a web browser (Safari, Chrome, whatever you use). Type in your domain name. Look at what appears.

Then ask yourself these questions:

• Does everything on the page fit on the screen, or are there things hanging off the edge?
• Can you read the text without zooming in?
• Can you tap buttons without accidentally tapping the wrong thing?
• Does the menu work, or is it a tiny hamburger icon?
• Do your images look crisp, or blurry and weird?
• If you have a contact form, can you actually fill it out on your phone?
• Do videos or media start playing automatically (and using up data)?
• When you scroll, does it feel smooth, or does it stutter?
• How long does it actually take for the page to load?

You don’t need technical knowledge to answer these. You just need your phone and 10 minutes.

The Three Most Common Mobile Opportunities I See

1. The Text That’s Too Small to Read

Your website probably looks great to you because you’re probably viewing it on a larger screen. But on mobile, sometimes the text shrinks down to something that requires reading glasses or squinting. This usually happens when a site was designed desktop-first and then someone just made it smaller without actually testing what smaller looked like.

Your opportunity: if you can’t comfortably read your own website on your phone, neither can your clients. This is fixable, and it’s one of the first things people notice.

2. The Menu That Doesn’t Work

On mobile, websites usually collapse navigation into something called a hamburger menu, that three-line icon. But I see a lot of sites where that menu is hard to find, or when you tap it, it doesn’t open, or when it opens, it doesn’t close. Or the menu items are so close together you tap the wrong one.

It sounds small, but it’s huge. If someone can’t navigate your site, they leave.

Your opportunity: this is a quick fix that can make the whole experience feel smoother and more professional.

3. The Buttons That Are Too Small or in the Wrong Place

Your main call to action, your contact button, your “get started” link, your email signup, your calendar link, your payment buttons, whatever it is, needs to be easy to tap on mobile. That means it needs to be big enough (most experts suggest 48×48 pixels, but honestly, bigger is better), and it needs to be in a place where someone’s thumb naturally goes when they’re holding a phone.

I see a lot of websites where the main action is a tiny button in the upper right corner, which is basically unreachable on a phone held with one hand.

Your opportunity: when people can easily do what you want them to do, they actually do it.

Why This Isn’t About Looking Cool

I want to be clear about something: I don’t care if your website looks like the most beautiful thing on a desktop if it doesn’t work on a phone. Pretty is great. Working is essential.

This is the marketing-first philosophy I always come back to. Your website’s job is to make it easy for the right people to understand what you do and take the next step. If mobile is broken, that job doesn’t happen.

A lot of solopreneurs worry about design and aesthetics and fancy features. But the truth is, the design and features don’t matter if people can’t actually use them on the device they’re holding.

Your website should feel like you, sell what you sell, and work for the people trying to buy from you. If mobile is broken, none of the other stuff matters.

How to Know If This Is a Real Problem or a Real Opportunity

Here’s my honest take: most websites built more than two years ago have at least some mobile issues. Technology changes, browsers change, what works in 2021 might be sluggish in 2024.

This doesn’t mean your website is bad. It means it’s ready to grow along with you.

If you check your website on your phone and you see:

• Text that looks too small or hard to read
• Images that are cut off or weirdly sized
• Buttons or menus that don’t work the way you’d expect
• A slow load time
• Anything that makes you go, “Hmm, that’s not how I wanted that to look”

That’s an opportunity. And opportunities are just possibilities you haven’t acted on yet.

The Fix (The Simple Version)

Some mobile issues are quick fixes. A button that’s too small? That’s a line of code. Text that’s too small? Same thing. A menu that doesn’t work right? Usually fixable pretty fast.

Other issues might need more work. If your entire site was built in a way that doesn’t respond well to different screen sizes, that’s a bigger project. But even that is fixable. It’s not a crisis. It’s just an opportunity you’ve been sitting on.

The key is knowing which is which. Is this a two-hour fix or a two-week project? You need to know that before you decide what to do next.

If you’re curious about what the actual issues are on your site, I can help you figure that out. I see websites all day long. I can spot the easy fixes and the bigger opportunities in about 10 minutes.

Make It Your Habit, Not Your Shame

Here’s what I want you to do starting today: check your website on your phone every time you’re about to share it with someone. Before you send that link in an email, before you hand them your card, before you share it on social media, pull it up on your phone first.

You don’t have to be embarrassed. You don’t have to apologize. You just get to know what you’re sharing, and then you get to decide what needs to change.

In my experience, the women who do this once usually keep doing it. Not because they’re obsessive, but because once you know, you can’t unknow. And once you see the opportunity, it’s hard not to want to fix it.

Your website is your tool. It’s supposed to work for you, not against you. And it’s supposed to work on every device where your clients might find you.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if my website looks perfect on desktop but weird on mobile? Does that mean I need a whole new site?

Not necessarily. Most of the time, mobile issues are fixable without a complete rebuild. It could be responsive design that needs tweaking, image sizing, text scaling, or how certain elements stack on smaller screens. I’d need to look at it specifically, but a lot of mobile problems are actually pretty quick fixes.

How often should I actually check my website on my phone?

Honestly? Every month. Just scroll through like a real visitor would. You don’t need to do a full audit every time, just make sure nothing looks broken and pages load reasonably fast. I’d also check it after you make any changes to your site, even small ones.

Does my website need to look exactly the same on mobile as it does on desktop?

No. In fact, it shouldn’t. Mobile and desktop are different experiences with different constraints. Your phone version might have a simplified menu, bigger text, fewer columns, or a different button placement. That’s perfectly fine. It just needs to work and look intentional, not broken.

What if I don’t know how to fix the mobile issues myself?

You don’t have to. If you’re comfortable with your website platform, you might be able to adjust things like text size or button sizing yourself. But if you’re not sure how, or if the issues are more complex, that’s when you get help from someone who knows your site inside and out. This isn’t something to figure out on your own if tech isn’t your thing.

If your website no longer feels like you, let’s talk about it – Book a Free Website Clarity Call with Beth →