Mobile fix guide
Sticky UI Element Obscures Content on Mobile
A sticky header, footer, banner, or chat widget covers a significant portion of the mobile viewport, reducing readable content area and potentially obscuring CTAs.
Issue ID: MOBILE-STICKY-UI-001
Severity: moderate
Impact: Med
Effort: S
Use this article when
- You need deeper remediation guidance than the issue card can show.
- You want CMS-specific steps before handing the fix to a developer.
- You want a repeatable re-check path after shipping the change.
What this issue is
A sticky header, footer, banner, or chat widget covers a significant portion of the mobile viewport, reducing readable content area and potentially obscuring CTAs.
Why it matters
A sticky header, footer, banner, or chat widget covers a significant portion of the mobile viewport, reducing readable content area and potentially obscuring CTAs. This affects usability on phones, which is where most local-business traffic now happens.
How we detect it
- FreeSiteAudit flags this issue when the rule for MOBILE-STICKY-UI-001 fails and the page evidence points to Dom body.
- You can usually confirm this by checking the page source or the relevant page settings inside your CMS.
Evidence examples
Check the affected page source, rendered output, or relevant CMS setting to confirm the missing or incorrect element.
How to fix it
- 1Minimize the height of sticky elements on mobile viewports
- 2Auto-hide sticky bars on scroll down, show on scroll up
- 3Ensure sticky elements do not cover more than 15% of the viewport
How to re-check it
- Test on mobile and confirm sticky elements do not obscure primary content or CTAs
Related tools
This issue is best verified with the full FreeSiteAudit crawl rather than a single-point mini tool.