How do I Check if my Website is Mobile Friendly?

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You've probably been hearing the rumors for a couple of weeks now and are asking yourself, how do I check if my website is mobile friendly? This has been a hot question by many, seeing how on April 21, 2015, websites that are not compatible are going to take a hit in the Google rankings.

That is the date that Google’s ranking algorithm is changing to accommodate the mobile market, which more people use to search the internet than desktop/laptop computers. Many of the things being compatible with mobile, has been in the works now ever since January, when mobile usage surpassed computer usage.

ARE YOU READY FOR APRIL 21, 2015?

I know the majority of you are very keen to what SEO and rankings mean to the amount of traffic your website receives, and thus the amount of customers too. I’m sure some of you may be stressing out about this, but let me set some of those fears to rest.

Fortunately many of us here at Wealthy Affiliate will be OK, especially if we built our websites well without misaligned images and links too close to one another. Another thing to ease your fears is that many of the WordPress themes are “responsive” themes, meaning that they can easily adapt to different screen sizes.

BUT HOW CAN I BE SURE?

There are 3 things you can do. FIRST: You can go into the Google Webmaster Tools area for your website and in the left side menu, click on “Search Traffic” -> “Mobile Usability” (as seen above) and this will tell you if your website is OK or there are problems. If there are problems it will tell you what they are and what pages/posts they are on.

SECOND: You will also want to TEST ALL OF THE PAGES AND POSTS ON YOUR WEBSITE, including your home page. You can do that by using the Mobile-Friendly Test tool offered by Google. After entering the page or post you want the testing tool to analyze, it will let you know if the page is Mobile-Friendly or not. It will then show an example (as seen below).


THIRD: You can not only read the Details section of your theme template on the WordPress website to see if it says either “mobile compatible” or “responsive” but you can also manually navigate through your website on a smartphone to see how the user experience is.

THE DEADLINE IS FAST APPROACHING

April 21, 2015 is a little more than a month away. So if you are wondering, how do I check if my website is Mobile Friendly, well now you know a couple of ways to check. So make sure you do these checks now, so if there is a problem you will have time to make adjustments.

NOTE: IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU TEST ALL PAGES AND POSTS! Even if your theme is good to go, you still can have problems from how you created your content. If your text is too small or you have links (touch points on mobile) too close to each other, these will make your page or post fail.

For the most of you WordPress users, I feel the problems will be minor, if at all. Use the Google developers Mobile-Friendly Test link above as well as the “Mobile Usability” link in Google Webmaster Tools. I hope your fears will be put at ease and your websites will be compatible like mine were.

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Recent Comments

69

Good text, bookmarked and plan to do these checks. Many thanks. Jovo

You are welcome Jovo.

I am surpriced all themes have not had this update yet

Most of them have but even if the themes are updated, a problem still can arise from a particular web page that has links (touch points) that are too close together. This is why you need to check each page of your site with the testing tool.

Hello Robert, Another home run. Very good information. Thanks for sharing.

You are welcome Claud. Happy you enjoyed it.

Thank you for the heads up Robert:)

You are welcome Jazmin. Glad to be of service. :)

Mines all good, thanks for the tips!

Awesome! Glad they are all good.

Appreciate the tips very much. Thanks.

You are welcome Allyn.

That's great information. Thanks

You are welcome.

Thanks for sharing Robert. Whenever I look for a new theme I always check the box for 'Responsive'. Then I check on my mobile phones and tablets. (Yes I'm a geek, I have two mobile phones and two tablets - Apple and Android.) ~Marion

Nothing wrong with being a Geek. :)

Thank you for the reminder! :)

You are welcome Christa

:)

Awesome! Bookmarked this one, I actually recently talked about a similar topic, although it deals more with site loading speed. Here is the link if you want to take a look at it: Your blog was really helpful :) Your right, the deadline is fast approaching!

Thanks for sharing the link florida. Make sure to check your site.

Your welcome :)

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