Mobile SEO checklist: 8 things to fix before Friday
Google indexes the mobile version of your site first. Most sites fail on at least 3 of these.
“Mobile-first indexing has been Google's default since 2021. Your desktop rankings are determined by your mobile experience.”
Since 2021, Google has indexed the mobile version of your site first. If your mobile experience is broken, slow, or incomplete — your desktop rankings suffer too.
Here are the 8 most common mobile SEO failures, in order of impact:
1. Missing viewport meta tag Without it, mobile browsers render your page at desktop width and shrink it down. Fix: add to your HTML head.
2. Tap targets too small Buttons and links under 48×48px are hard to tap accurately. Google flags these in Search Console under Mobile Usability.
3. Text too small to read without zooming Base font size should be at least 16px on mobile. Smaller text forces users to pinch-zoom, which Google counts as a negative usability signal.
4. Content wider than screen Horizontal scrolling is a strong mobile usability failure signal. Usually caused by images with fixed widths or CSS that doesn't account for small screens.
5. Slow mobile load time Mobile connections are slower than desktop. A page that loads in 2 seconds on desktop may take 5+ seconds on 4G. Use WebP images, lazy loading, and a CDN.
6. Intrusive interstitials Full-screen popups that appear immediately on mobile are penalized by Google. Banners, slide-ins, and small cookie notices are fine. Full-screen takeovers are not.
7. Mobile-only content being hidden If your mobile version hides content that's visible on desktop, Google may not index that content — since it crawls your mobile version.
8. Different canonical tags on mobile vs desktop Your mobile and desktop pages should have identical canonical tags. Dynamic serving and AMP pages have specific requirements — check Google's documentation.
Check Google Search Console → Experience → Mobile Usability for your site's specific issues.