The short answer
Open your website on a phone and tap every phone number. If the dialer does not open with your full, correct number, the number is plain text, a picture, or a broken link. The fix is a link written as tel:+17025550142, which Squarespace, Wix and WordPress can all create without code. Then tap it again on a real phone, in the header, the footer and on every Call button.
What a phone number that will not dial costs you
Someone who needs a plumber, an electrician or a garage door company today is usually holding a phone when they find you. They see your number and they tap it. If nothing happens, they now have to remember ten digits, leave your page, open the dialer and type the number in with one thumb. Some people do that. Others go back to the search results and tap the next company, whose number works.
Nobody calls to tell you they gave up, so this loss never shows up anywhere you would look. That is why it is worth ten minutes tonight. It is not a design question and it does not need a new website. It is a link that either works or does not.
The two minute test
Do this on your own phone, on every page a customer is likely to land on. Mobile data is better than your office wifi, because that is what your customers use in a driveway.
- Open your home page and tap the phone number in the header.
- Tap every button that says Call, Call now or Call us.
- Scroll to the footer and tap the number there.
- Open your contact page and your main service pages, and repeat.
- Each time, check that the dialer opens with your full number, area code included, with no digit missing or swapped. Then back out without calling.
On a computer you can get a quick second opinion. Hover over the number and look at the small address that appears in the bottom corner of the browser. A working phone link starts with tel: followed by the number. If no address appears at all, the number is plain text.
Why it can seem fine on your phone and still be broken
Apple’s Safari documentation says Safari on the iPhone guesses. It turns text that looks like a phone number into a link on its own, unless the website has switched that guessing off. So a plain text number can dial when you test it on one phone and do nothing for a customer whose browser is not guessing, or on a site where the guessing is turned off.
A real link does not depend on a guess. If the hover test on a computer shows no tel: address, treat the number as broken even if it dialed on your phone.
The ways it usually fails
- The number is plain text. It looks right on the page and tapping it does nothing. This is the one we find most often on local service sites.
- The number is part of a picture. A logo, a banner or a photo of a truck with the number painted on it. Nobody can tap it.
- The link dials an old number. Someone updated the words on the page and not the link behind them, so the page shows the new number and the tap rings the old one.
- The Call button goes somewhere else. It opens the contact page instead of the dialer, which adds a step for a person who had already decided to call.
- One spot works and another does not. The header was fixed at some point and the footer, the contact page or a service page never was.
What a working phone link looks like
Behind the number a customer sees, a working link points at an address that starts with tel: and then the number. For a Las Vegas number that looks like tel:+17025550142: a plus sign, the country code 1, then the ten digits. Mozilla’s web documentation uses the same shape in its own example, and the written standard for these links, RFC 3966, is where the plus sign and country code come from.
The words people see can be written however you like, such as (702) 555-0142. Only the address behind them has to be exact.
How to fix it without touching code
Most website builders have a phone option in the same box you use to add any other link. Check your builder’s own help page for the current steps, because menus move.
- Squarespace: select the number, add a link and choose the phone option. Squarespace’s help center says to include the country code and area code, not to start the number with a 0, and lets you choose whether the link calls or opens a text message.
- Wix: Wix’s help center says a phone number typed into a text box becomes clickable, and that a button can be linked to a phone number so a tap starts a call. Test it anyway, especially if the number sits inside an image or a design element instead of a plain text box.
- WordPress: select the number, click the link icon and enter
tel:followed by the number, for exampletel:+17025550142. WordPress.com also has a Contact Info block that turns a phone number into a call link by itself. - Anything else: the same
tel:link works anywhere a normal link does, including buttons and menus. Whoever manages your site can add one in a few minutes.
If your number only exists inside a picture, keep the picture if you like it, and add the number as real text right next to it with the link on the text.
Check the other places your number lives
While you are at it, compare the number on your website with the one on your Google Business Profile, your invoices and your truck. If they do not match, pick the right one and fix the others, so a customer who finds you twice does not find two different numbers.
If your site uses local business structured data, the behind the scenes description that Google documents for businesses, it has a telephone field too, and that number should match. And if you use a call tracking service that shows different numbers to different visitors, run the two minute test with the tracking switched on, and confirm the number the tap dials is the same number the page shows.
Then test what happens after the tap
A link that dials is half the job. Call your own business number from someone else’s phone once during business hours and once after hours. Does a person answer? If it goes to voicemail, is the box full, and does the greeting say who you are and when you will call back? A perfect link that rings into a full voicemail box on a Saturday morning loses the same job, just one step later.
If you also take requests through a form, test it the same night by filling it out like a customer and checking your inbox and your spam folder. Our guide on why a site gets visits but no calls walks through the form check and the other usual causes, and they apply to any trade.
Make it a monthly habit
Phone links break quietly. A new page goes up without one, the number changes and one link gets missed, or a builder update changes how a button behaves. Put a reminder on the first of each month and run the two minute test again. It is the cheapest check your website has, and it guards the moment a customer has already decided to call.
If you are planning a new site anyway, our guide to the five pages a local service website needs shows where the phone number should sit on each page so nobody has to hunt for it.
Where Fieldline fits
Fieldline’s current pilot is a fixed $1,500 build for up to five focused pages, split $750 after the written agreement and $750 after your written approval, with the domain and the critical accounts kept in your name. Optional Web Care is $99 a month after a build, and its monthly check of the site includes confirming the phone link is still there, which is exactly the kind of thing that breaks quietly.
Being straight about the limits: a working phone link removes a reason to give up, and it cannot promise that anyone calls. If you would rather have someone run these checks on your current site and write down what they find, the free written website audit does that with no payment and no sales call.
Written by Dylan Saatdjian, who runs Fieldline Web Co. and does the work these guides describe. No affiliate links, no sponsored placements. Prices and ranges reflect publicly listed figures at the time of writing; always confirm current pricing with any provider directly.