When you think about your website, you probably picture it on a desktop monitor. Makes sense — you review it on your office computer.
But your customers aren't on office computers. They're on phones. And the experience is completely different.
What Do the Numbers Say?
- 63% of all US web traffic is mobile
- 76% of local searches happen on smartphones
- Google has used mobile-first indexing since 2019 — they rank the mobile version of your site, not the desktop version
If your desktop site is beautiful but your mobile site is broken, Google sees the broken version.
What Does "Mobile-First" Actually Mean?
It's not "make the desktop site smaller." It's designing for the phone first, then expanding for bigger screens.
Desktop-first (wrong): Design a beautiful desktop layout → squeeze it onto a phone → things break and overlap → patch it with a mobile stylesheet.
Mobile-first (right): Design for the smallest screen → make sure content hierarchy works in one column → buttons big enough to tap (44x44px minimum) → text readable without zooming → expand for larger screens.
What Are the Most Common Mobile Problems?
- Text too small. If visitors pinch-to-zoom, you've lost them. Body text: at least 16px.
- Buttons too small or close together. Fingers aren't mouse pointers. 44x44px minimum.
- Horizontal scrolling. If anything is wider than the screen, the experience is broken.
- Slow on cellular. A page that loads in 2 seconds on WiFi might take 6 on 4G.
- Intrusive pop-ups. Google penalizes these. They're also infuriating on small screens.
- Important actions hidden in hamburger menus. Your phone number and booking button should be visible without tapping the menu icon.
What Does Ted Build?
Every Ted site starts with mobile. The design, content hierarchy, navigation, calls to action — all optimized for phone screens first. Then expanded gracefully for tablets and desktops.
The result: a site that works perfectly for the 63-76% of visitors on their phones, while still looking great on desktop.