Website Optimization And Mobile Browsing

Website Optimization And Mobile Browsing. Search engines are currently paying more and more attention to the convenience of viewing sites on mobile devices since they consider this indicator an important factor in search efficiency. As a result, search engine optimization of sites today provides for mandatory work in this direction, which is effectively helped by the function “Easy viewing on mobile devices” in Google’s webmaster tools.

According to Google, if Internet users switch from a search engine to sites, then they should receive content that is not only relevant to their search queries but also convenient to view. In this case, Google suggests viewing convenience as the following set of factors:

variable viewing area;
dynamic page layout, avoiding the use of horizontal scrolling or scaling;
automatically changing font sizes depending on the screen size;
large and interactive elements located at a sufficient distance from each other;
built on the basis of technologies suitable for mobile devices, graphics, and animation elements.

In Google’s webmaster tools, in the Search Traffic section of the Ease of Viewing on Mobile Devices report, the search engine indicates the URLs of the site’s pages that least meet the above requirements. Such a report allows site owners to analyze the problems that have arisen and eliminated them in order to increase the site’s search efficiency.

Browsing Issues.

The report indicates which specific browsing issues were discovered by Google search engines and on which specific pages such problems were detected. For example, one of the most common problems of viewing a site on mobile devices is the incorrectly configured viewing area. Google recommends using the viewport meta tag to resolve this issue.

Viewport Meta Tag.

The viewport meta tag allows you to tell the browser how it should handle the page size and scale for viewing on screens of different devices. This meta tag must be present in the head block of the site’s pages. To configure the viewing area for use on mobile devices, this meta tag must be written as follows:

<meta name = “viewport” content = “width = device-width, initial-scale = 1” />

Font Size.

In addition to the unconfigured viewing area, another common problem is the too-small font size used on the pages of the site. Google adds pages to the Small Font Size report if users have to zoom in on these pages. Google recommends that you set the base font size on the site to 16 pixels: with a correctly configured viewing area, this site will provide, according to Google, readability.

Distance Between The Interactive Elements.

The third common problem of the convenience of viewing the site on mobile devices is the too-small distance between the interactive elements on the page. The report “Interactive elements are too close” includes pages on the site where the navigation elements are so close to each other that it is impossible to touch one of them without touching the second. Google recommends setting the size of the most important interactive elements on the site pages to at least 48 pixels. Less important elements may be smaller, but there should be no other interactive elements around them at a distance of about 30 pixels.

Thus, the use of the “Convenience of viewing on mobile devices” tool will help to identify the above and other problems with viewing the site on mobile devices and then optimize the site for more efficient work and promotion.