Is my website mobile friendly? Check it in two minutes

Around two in three website visits now come from a phone. For local businesses it's often more, because people search on the move: "plumber near me", "cafe open now". Whatever your website looks like on a phone, that's your real shopfront.

The catch is that most owners built and approved their site on a desktop screen, and it looked great there. Phones got the leftovers.

The two-minute self-test

Open your site on your phone and try to do the things a customer would:

• Read without zooming. If you're pinching to read, so is everyone.
• Tap the menu, first try. Fiddly menus lose people quietly.
• Find your phone number and tap it. It should dial, not just sit there as text.
• Fill in your contact form. Awkward on a phone? That's abandoned enquiries.
• Time the load. Count seconds on mobile data, not your wifi. Past three and you're losing people.

What the common failures mean

A site that fails these usually has one of two problems. Either it was never set up for mobile at all, which browsers detect and Google penalises, or it technically adapts to small screens but nobody ever refined the result, so it works in theory and annoys in practice.

The first problem is structural and worth professional help. The second is often a list of small fixes: bigger text, better spacing, a simpler menu.

The honest measurement

Your own thumbs are a good start, but Google's tools measure things you can't feel, like how long the page really takes for a first-time visitor and whether the mobile setup is technically present. A free SiteMOT runs those tests on your live site and reports back in plain words, including a straight pass or fail on phone-friendliness. Two minutes of your time, and you'll know instead of hoping.