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What makes a mobile landing page easier to use
Most people who click your advertisement are holding a phone. The page they land on decides whether that click costs you money or earns it.
Most people who click your advertisement will be holding a phone. The page they land on decides whether that click costs you money or earns it.
Here are the things that matter most on a small screen.
The first screen answers the question
Whoever clicked was promised something. The first screen needs to confirm they are in the right place and give them a reason to keep going.
That means a clear headline matching the ad, one line of supporting detail, and a visible next step. Not a carousel, not a pop up, and not a cookie banner covering the whole screen.
The main action is obvious and reachable
The action should be a button rather than a line of text. It should be visible without scrolling, and large enough to press accurately with a thumb.
One primary action per page. If you offer a phone number, a form, a chat window and a brochure download all at once, the visitor has to choose, and choosing uses time they will not spend.
Load time over everything else
A landing page that takes four seconds to appear has already lost a meaningful share of its visitors.
The usual causes are large uncompressed images, several font families loading at once, and third party scripts that block the page. The first two are normally straightforward to fix. Test the page on mobile data rather than office wifi, because that is closer to reality.
Forms that are short and typed correctly
Every extra field reduces completions. Ask for what you need in order to make contact, and nothing more.
Each field should bring up the right keyboard. An email field should show the email keyboard, a phone field should show numbers. Labels should sit above the fields rather than inside them, so they do not disappear once somebody starts typing.
Errors belong beside the field that caused them, and the page should not clear what was already entered.
No unexpected movement
Content that shifts while somebody is about to tap a button is one of the most irritating things a website can do, and it counts against you in Google's own page experience measurement.
Reserve space for images and banners so nothing jumps when they load. Avoid pop ups that appear once someone begins scrolling.
Text that is comfortable to read
Body text around sixteen to eighteen pixels, with generous line height and short paragraphs. Grey text on white at a small size looks elegant on a laptop and becomes unreadable on a phone in daylight.
A last check
Open the page on a phone, turn off wifi, and try to make an enquiry. If you can finish in under a minute without pinching or zooming, the page is doing its job.
We build websites with all of this in mind, and we will happily review yours as part of a free audit.
Sources and further reading
Speed and usability guidance in this article is drawn from Google's own developer resources.
Want this checked on your own account?
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