PageSpeed Insights Tool Help Updated to Improve Mobile Site Experience


If you've been following our advice you're aware of two things: the future of search is going mobile AND that a page's load time is an important factor for search engine rankings and user experience. Google's helping you help yourself with updates to their PageSpeed Insights tool with new recommendations for mobile pages. The new recommendations address a page's load time and more, with ways to make your site more easily navigated by mobile users. The updates include:

  • Configure the viewport: Without a meta-viewport tag, modern mobile browsers will assume your page is not mobile-friendly, and will fall back to a desktop viewport and possibly apply font-boosting, interfering with your intended page layout. Configuring the viewport to width=device-width should be your first step in mobilizing your site.
  • Size content to the viewport: Users expect mobile sites to scroll vertically, not horizontally. Once you've configured your viewport, make sure your page content fits the width of that viewport, keeping in mind that not all mobile devices are the same width.
  • Use legible font sizes: If users have to zoom in just to be able to read your article text on their smartphone screen, then your site isn't mobile-friendly. PageSpeed Insights checks that your site's text is large enough for most users to read comfortably.
  • Size tap targets appropriately: Nothing's more frustrating than trying to tap a button or link on a phone or tablet touchscreen, and accidentally hitting the wrong one because your finger pad is much bigger than a desktop mouse cursor. Make sure that your mobile site's touchscreen tap targets are large enough to press easily.
  • Avoid plugins: Most smartphones don't sup...

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