Google Mobile Usability Issues Detected

What are Mobile Usability Issues?

Google and other SEO services crawl websites using algorithms to identify potential issues with using the site on mobile devices. A majority of websites, even those designed specifically for mobile will trigger the algorithm to throw an error and tell the website owner that there is a problem. Some of these problems include:

• Content wider than screen
• Clickable elements too close together
• Text too small to read

What can I do?

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DO NOT PANIC

Google sends these notifications from time to time and you shouldn't wouldn't worry too much about it. But that doesn't mean you should do nothing.

Check Google Search Console

Sometimes, this is just a Google crawl error. In Google Search Console you can initiate the validation of the fix without making any changes to your site. Very often through validation the errors get cleared out.

Review your site on mobile

We recommend reviewing all the pages of your store on a mobile device and see if any elements are overlapping, scrolling horizontally or difficult to read or click. Since our design tools are WYSIWYG/drag & drop there could be improvements you can make, or that we can help you make to resolve issues with elements being too close together, off-screen or too small.

It's important to note that there is no way for Zoey Support to automatically know which elements (if any) are causing Google to send you this message. So we may be unable to help without clear guidance as to which elements Google finds issue with. If you open a support ticket, please provide clear screenshots showing the actual issues on your store's theme on a mobile device.

Will this impact my SEO

It might. If there are obvious issues with your store's theme in mobile view where elements are overlapping or going off-screen, they need to be corrected or you could drop in mobile search ranking. Read our tutorial on Mobile Design for some information and tips on how you can use the Visual Design Editor to optimize mobile design.

Many Zoey stores still receive these warnings with no actual mobile usability issues to be found. In these instances, validating in Google Search console may help. But it is also not reported that these issues Google is claiming to find are causing any decrease in search result ranking on mobile.

If you are still concerned you can contact Google or an SEO specialist for a more detailed review of these error reports and potentially steps you can take to mitigate any potential damage.