Mobile-Friendly Web Design and Website Mobile Optimisation Mistakes To Avoid

Anthony Williams By Anthony Williams 5 Min Read
Power your website with SEMrush

Power your website with SEMrush

Now that Google is sending warnings to websites that are not mobile-friendly, it is time to work on your website mobile optimisation.

If you have checked on a Google Search result on your mobile phone, you will find yourself looking at a page where the text is too small.

Also, the links will be too tiny, and you will have to scroll sideways to see all the content which is not good for modern website.

This usually happens when the website is optimized for mobile phone accessibility. This can be a frustrating experience for mobile searchers.

However, you can check whether your site is mobile-friendly on Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test page.

 Power your website with >>Hostgator<< – web hosting service that scales from easy to expert. Get unlimited storage, unmetered bandwidth, unbeatable hosting + a free domain for a year. 

Power your business with Hostgator Web Hosting Services
  • 👉Free domain name.
  • 👉SSL certificate.
  • 👉Unmetered bandwidth.
  • 👉One-click installations.
  • 👉24/7/365 support.
  • 👉Automated site backups.
  • 👉Professional email & more.
  • 👉Free SEO tools.

Common mobile optimisation mistakes

Starting today, to make it easier for people to find the information that they’re looking for, we are adding a “mobile-friendly” label to our mobile search results, said Google.

Although these were just warnings and they don’t mean a penalty, it may be high time to refreshed your knowledge of what makes for a mobile-friendly site before your competitors use it to their advantage.

Below are some of the common website mobile optimization mistakes you should not make in an attempt to make your business website mobile-friendly:

#1]. Avoid slow page loading

Speed matters when it comes to accessing a website either on a desktop or mobile. If pages on your website take too long to load, you have to make sure you do something urgently to address the issue.

 
Google mobile-friendly usability is good for search engine
Google mobile-friendly usability issues

This is because speed is a crucial factor on mobile (in part because mobile browsers can’t handle bulky pages as effortlessly as desktop browsers). Hence, test the speed of your site for mobile users and improve on it, if necessary.

#2]. Beware of unreadable/unplayable content

Remember that mobile browsers are often lightweight and sometimes lack plugins or codecs. So try to avoid putting up unplayable content on your website as they often affect users’ experience.

Another thing is that mobile browsers may have a problem with license-restricted content or content that requires Flash or an uncommon player to be installed. The best thing to do is to avoid these to improve the mobile user experience.

#3]. Don’t block JavaScript, CSS etc

Google has long advised SEOs against blocking these assets (let’s say, in robots.txt), as this may result in poorer rankings for your mobile as well as your desktop site. To make sure these are not blocked, perform the Fetch as Google test in Google Webmaster Tools.

#4]. Don’t force users to download your app

Some websites are somehow too aggressive when it comes to pushing users to download their mobile apps. Don’t do this because it is not a good way to sell your website app to your users.

If you have an app you would like to advertise to mobile users, you should not force people to download it by preventing users from browsing your content unless they download the app. This can cause indexing issues and cause users to have a poor experience on your site.

#5]. Use proper redirects

In regards to mobile, faulty redirects are any redirects that point the mobile user to the wrong equivalent of the “desktop” URL. Usually, these issues would be reported in Google Webmaster Tools.

Also, check for irrelevant cross-links in order not to confuse users. If you use a separate mobile site, check its internal links for consistency.

Make sure those internal links go to mobile-optimized pages, not to their desktop counterparts (such as your desktop-optimized homepage, for example).

#6]. Watch out for mobile-only 404s

Sometimes a page that loads perfectly fine on desktop returns a 404 on mobile. The best practice is to ensure the respective mobile page is not a 404 and to always redirect mobile users to mobile equivalents of your desktop pages.

 

Share This Article
Follow:
Tony is a blogger, content creator, SEO marketer, and internet entrepreneur. He writes articles on various topics. Follow him on Twitter.
3 Comments
  • Real treat to read a genuinely good article. you have covered almost all the points with deep research to create beautiful and effective website designs. what you wrote makes sense.

    But most internet marketers and unprofessional web programmers make same mistake. love to read it and defiantly will share it in my developers team.

  • With respect to portable, flawed sidetracks are any sidetracks that indicate the versatile client what might as well be called the “desktop” URL. Generally these issues would be accounted for in Google Webmaster Tools.

    Likewise, check for superfluous cross-joins on your site all together not to befuddle your clients. On the off chance that you utilize a different portable site, check its interior connections for consistency.

    Ensure those inside connections go to portable advanced pages, not to their desktop partners, (for example, your desktop-upgraded landing page, for instance).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *