How to make phone calls and send SMS messages from a simple web page

Not many people know about this cool fact. A very simple trick allows you to make telephone calls and send SMS messages from web pages when you view them from a smartphone.

All you need is some basic knowledge about HTML. If you have that basic knowledge you know what a hyperlink is. In raw HTML it looks something like this:

This is a <a href="http://www.example.com">link</a> in a sentence.

You probably also know how to open your user's email client using a very similar syntax:

Send us an <a href="mailto:email@example.com">email</a> to get a quote

The only difference is the prefix "mailto:" before the actual email address. That is called a <em>URI scheme</em> and that specific URI scheme makes the browser open the default email program once the users clicks it.

There are many URI schemes, and two of them are "tel:" and "sms:".

How to make a phone call from your web page

Use the prefix "tel:" in a hyperlink:

Why don't you <a href="tel:+123456789">call us</a> right now

How to send an SMS from your web page

Use the prefix "sms:" in a hyperlink:

Send us an <a href="sms:+123456789">SMS</a> with your request

.. or, you may add a sample content ..

Send us an <a href="sms:+123456789?body=I+am+interested+in+product+ABC123">SMS</a> with your request