The first phone screen is where a contractor website wins or loses the call

The first screen of your site on a phone, 390 pixels wide and about 844 tall, has to do three things without a scroll: say what you do and where, show one reason to trust you, and put a call button under the thumb. Most contractor sites we audit put a slogan and a stock photo there and the phone number two or three screens down.

The homeowner with water on the floor does not scroll; she goes back to Google.

The three things, in order

Who and where. "Roof repair and replacement in Schenectady County" beats "Quality You Can Trust" every time, because the homeowner is checking one thing first: did I land in the right place? Name the trade and the area in the headline, not in a paragraph under the photo.

One reason to believe. Licensed and insured, the years in business, the review count with the stars, the manufacturer certification. One line, not a wall. The rest of the proof can live below; the first screen needs a single reason to keep reading.

The way to reach you now. A call button big enough for a thumb, at the bottom of the first screen or fixed to the bottom edge, with a text option next to it for the people who will not call. It must be a real tel: link that opens the dialer in one tap, not a number in an image and not a form that asks for an email first.

If a homeowner has to scroll to find out how to call you, the first screen failed.

The thumb zone

People hold phones one-handed and reach with the thumb. The easy zone is the bottom third of the screen; the top corners are the hard reach. A call button in the top-right corner of the header, which is where most templates put it, is in the worst spot on the screen and usually the size of a fingernail. A fixed bar along the bottom edge with Call and Text is in the best spot, visible on every screen, and costs nothing in design. Every one of our demo sites has one; so does every client site.

What covers the first screen instead

The free audit takes a real screenshot at phone size and then checks what a tap would hit. Here is what gets in the way, from most to least common:

• The pop-up. A discount offer, a newsletter box, a "we're open" notice, sliding over the page one second after it loads. On a phone it covers most of the screen, and the close button is tiny. The audit measures the share of the first screen a pop-up covers; anything past a quarter is reported as a finding. Our short answer on pop-ups has the detail.
• The chat bubble. Sitting exactly where the call button should be, bottom-right, usually offline. A homeowner who taps it gets "Leave a message" and leaves.
• The cookie banner. Required in some places, oversized everywhere. Keep it to one line at the bottom, not a card that blocks the headline.
• The slider. Three rotating photos with three different headlines. The homeowner reads none of them; the phone downloads all three.
• The video background. Autoplaying footage of a crew on a roof, 20 MB, over a cell signal. The screen is blank until it arrives; see why your website is slow on phones.

How the audit checks the first screen

Two measurements, both on the real page, not a guess from the code:

1. The screenshot. A headless phone browser at 390 x 844 loads the page with the certificate warnings ignored (so we see what a homeowner would see after tapping through one, which is itself reported separately). The audit PDF shows that shot next to a heat map of where eyes land, and next to the fastest nearby competitor's first screen.
2. The tap test. A second pass finds every element on that first screen that would place a call or open a booking: tel: links, "Call", "Schedule", "Book" and "Get a quote" buttons. It records whether one exists, its size and position, how much of the screen a pop-up covers, and whether the page it tested matches the page in the screenshot (so a redirect or a pop-up cannot fool it). If the first callable thing is below the fold, the audit reports how many screens down it is.

Prices, forms and the second screen

Once the first screen has done its job, the second screen decides how good the call is. For emergency trades, published starting prices ("Water heater replacement from $1,450") screen out the people who were never going to buy and give the rest a reason to pick you; our answer on showing prices goes through when that is right and when it is not. For big-ticket work like a roof or a kitchen, the second screen is proof: before-and-after photos with the town named, and the review that mentions the crew by name.

Forms come last. A form on the first screen is a wall between the homeowner and you. A form on the second screen, three fields long, catches the person who will not call during work hours. Ours use name, phone, and one line about the problem, and the submission arrives as a text to the owner within seconds.

What the first screen looks like per trade

The job is the same; the words are not. The roofing page leads with the storm and the inspection. The HVAC page leads with no heat, no cool and a price. The plumbing page leads with the arrival time. Each one links to a demo you can open on your phone and judge against this guide.

Questions contractors ask about the first screen