Five plain checks of your homepage on a phone

Before you start

Open your homepage in a normal browser tab on your own phone, with a notes app beside it. Mark each check pass, fix or unsure.

For anything unsure, take a screenshot and ask the person or company that built or hosts your site. If you do not know who that is, look through old invoices or ask whoever first set the site up. The vendor pages quoted below were read on 2026-11-01 and may change.

Check 1: the phone number does something when tapped

Tap your phone number on the homepage. A tap-to-call number is an ordinary link whose address starts with tel:. MDN's example is <a href="tel:+1(800)555-0123">(800) 555-0123</a>. That example uses a US-style number. For another country, or a number with an extension, ask your site builder for the right format instead of copying it. Source: MDN: The Anchor element.

What happens depends on the device. MDN says cellular devices autodial the number. Apple's archived iPhone documentation says iOS displays an alert asking whether you want to dial and starts dialing if you accept. A call that starts, or is offered after a prompt, is a pass. Source: MDN: The Anchor element; Apple: Phone Links (iPhone URL scheme reference, archived).

Behavior varies by device. MDN lists a calling program, saving the number to contacts, or sending it to another device. If you normally view your site on a desktop, borrow a phone for this check. Source: MDN: The Anchor element.

If nothing happens, the number may be plain text. Apple says phone links can be specified explicitly with the tel URL scheme. It also says Safari on iOS detects telephone numbers by default and that a page can switch this off with a format-detection meta tag. You do not need to find out which applies to your site. Because a tel link written into the page is the explicit method Apple describes, ask your builder to add one. Source: Apple: Phone Links (iPhone URL scheme reference, archived).

Check 2: the page title makes sense

Look at the title on your browser tab. If your phone does not show the page title, open the page on a computer. This check looks only at the tab. It does not show what Google displays.

Google's guidance is about the title shown for a result in Google Search, which it calls a title link. The page's title element is one of several sources Google may use for it, along with headings, og:title and anchor text. Google advises that every page have a title in the title element. It asks for descriptive and concise text, and says to avoid vague descriptors such as "Home" for a home page. It also says to avoid repeated or boilerplate text. The home page title is, in Google's words, a reasonable place for some additional information about the site. Source: Google Search Central: Influencing your title links in search results.

This next point is the author's suggestion, not Google's: a title that names your business and what it does is easy to recognise in a list of tabs. If your tab says only "Home", mark it fix.

Many site editors have a page title or SEO title setting; look in the page settings. Do not expect search results to change at once. Google says it has to recrawl and reprocess a page to notice updates, which may take a few days to a few weeks. Source: Google Search Central: Influencing your title links in search results.

Check 3: the footer year

This is a plain reading task and rests on no outside source. Scroll to the bottom of the homepage, read the copyright line and compare the year with today's date. If it shows an earlier year, mark it fix. Editing the text is often enough; if you would rather not edit it every January, ask your builder whether it can update itself.

Check 4: the menu labels

Another plain reading task. Read every menu label slowly, including those behind the phone menu icon. Then hand your phone to someone who has never seen the site and ask them to read the labels aloud. Note any typo or label they find confusing. The fix is usually a text edit in your site's menu settings, if you have access to them.

Check 5: the way to contact you

Starting at the homepage, find how a visitor would reach you: a number, a contact page link or a form. Count the taps. Then tap the contact links with your thumb. If you hit a neighbouring link, note it.

As the author's opinion, if you struggle to find or tap your contact details, a visitor might too. Larger buttons or more spacing are style changes that your builder will usually make, so describe what you tried to tap and what happened.

Takeaway checklist

Tap-to-call: pass is a call that starts or is offered; fix is a link beginning with tel:.

Page title: pass is a title that says more than "Home"; fix is the page title setting.

Footer year: pass is the current year; fix is a text edit or an automatic year.

Menu labels: pass is every label reading correctly; fix is a menu edit.

Contact path: pass is contact details you can find and tap; fix is a layout or style change.

Unsure: screenshot it and ask whoever built or hosts the site.

A hypothetical example

This example is invented. It describes no real site, and no site has been tested for this article. Imagine a tab that reads "Home", a footer showing last year and a phone number that does nothing when tapped. The notes would read: page title, fix; footer year, fix; tap-to-call, fix. Those three notes could go to the builder as one message.