A customer in Unionville who finds your website on a phone should be able to call you with one tap. Try it: open your site on your phone and press your phone number. If nothing happens, your web person can turn it into a tap-to-call link. Web builders call it a tel: link, a link that points to a phone number instead of a page.
The line to hand your web person. Mozilla’s guide for web builders (MDN) gives this example: <a href="tel:+1(800)555-0123">(800) 555-0123</a>. The part after tel: is what gets dialed, starting with a plus sign and the country code. The (800) 555-0123 in the middle is what shows on the screen. Both spots get your own number. On a tap, in MDN’s words: “Cellular devices autodial the number.” On a computer, a calling program may pick it up instead.
One number in the hidden code. If your site carries hidden code that describes the business to Google (No. 17), Google wants the phone number in it written with the country code and area code. Google’s rules also say the code shouldn’t describe anything visitors can’t see. So the code and the page should show the same number. Google promises nothing in search results from the code.
Why Google cares about the phone version. Google says it “uses the mobile version of a site’s content” when it records your site and decides where it shows up in search. It asks for the same content on the phone version as on the computer one. An owner whose phone pages hold less “can expect some traffic loss,” meaning fewer visitors, Google says. That warning is aimed at sites that keep a separate phone version. A site that reshapes one page to fit any screen has the same content on both, by Google’s account. Google doesn’t mention phone numbers there; treating yours as content that belongs on both is our reading.
Where Google stops. None of these Google pages ties a tappable number, or any number on your site, to where you show up in search. None requires it to match your Google listing, the box with your details that comes up when someone searches for your business.
The request to make: wherever your number shows on the computer version of your site, put it on the phone version too, as a tap-to-call link, and use that same number in the hidden code.
The Standard: A customer on a phone should be able to call you by tapping the number on your site. That takes a tel: link, which your web person writes.
Source: MDN Web Docs, “<a>: The Anchor element”; Google Search Central, “Mobile site and mobile-first indexing best practices,” “Local business (LocalBusiness) structured data” and “General structured data guidelines,” read Sept. 25, 2026.
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. Tap the number in this line and you’ll reach Farmington Storage. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett has covered Farmington long enough to remember when calling the town meant a rotary phone and patience. He is on his second coffee, and his phone still works. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town: Town Council and the land use boards, the police log, the schools, elections, and the businesses in Farmington and Unionville. Our motto is “Always last to breaking news,” and nobody has ever accused us of breaking it. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell a neighbor. 📰