How to Fix Mobile Usability Error in WordPress Website?
Are you searching for the best guide to fix mobile usability errors from your wordpress website? In many wordpress websites this error has occurred and if you are not a wordpress developer it is quite difficult to know why this error occurred and how to fix it. Do not worry, in this article I will provide an in-depth guide to recover your website from this error.
But before we start let’s take a look at some stats. According to recent statistics, mobile devices accounted for 45.49 percent of web traffic in the United States during the first quarter of 2023. This represents a decrease from the third quarter of 2022, when mobile devices were responsible for 52.5 percent of web traffic. In contrast, the majority of web traffic worldwide originated from mobile devices, with over 50 percent coming from these devices.
Google confirmed mobile usability is a ranking factor. Google launched a free tool to check website mobile friendliness. By using this tool you can check if your website is mobile friendly or has some issues.
If you don’t want to check your website pages and posts one by one you can directly go to google search console and select property for your website. Under the mobile usablity tab you can see the issues available on your website.
What are the Types of Mobile Usability Error?
There are few types of mobile usability error that can negatively impact the user experience on mobile devices. This is the reason search engines like Google take it seriously and give value or devalue to your website according to the usability of your website on mobile devices. Below are the most common types of mobile usability errors –
- Text too small to read
- Clickable elements too close together
- Content wider than screen
- Viewport not set [to “device-width”]
- Uses incompatible plugins
These are the most common mobile usability issues that can occur in websites. Let’s understand what they are and how to fix them.
Text too small to read
This mobile usability error occurs when the font size on a mobile website is too small to be easily read on a small screen. This can cause frustration and eye strain for users, leading to a poor user experience.
To avoid this issue, make sure that the font size on websites is large enough to be easily read on a mobile device. Best practices suggest a minimum font size of 16 pixels for body text, and larger sizes for headings and other important text.
How to fix it?
To resolve this issue first visit the page where this issue occurred. After that select the text and do right click, on the right side under style you can see the current font size of the website text. The first step you need to do is change the font size as per your need for an example, I have changed the font size for bullet point 10px to 16 px.
.entry-content li {
- line-height: 1.3;
- font-size: 16px;
}
Copy this code and go to the website admin panel and select customize under appearance.
Paste this code under the additional CSS tab .
Click on the publish tab and the size of your text is changed. You can change the text size for heading, paragraph by doing the same process.
Clickable Elements Too Close Together
This mobile usability error occurs mostly when links, buttons and other clickable elements are too close and make problems for mobile users to navigate easily. Google recommends a minimum size of 48 pixels for all clickable elements.
How to Fix this Issue in Mobile Devices
When faced with this issue, there are several steps you can take to ensure that your clickable elements are spaced out properly. First, you can check the size of an element in Google Chrome by right-clicking on the element and selecting “Inspect”. Then, choose “Styles” in the console on the right side of the page and scroll down to find the element you’re interested in.
Next, copy the object with its attributes and adjust the padding, margin, or border values to increase the tap target size. For example, you can increase the padding-bottom and margin-bottom attributes to 9 pixels and 10 pixels, respectively. Once you’ve made your changes, be sure to test them on a mobile device to ensure that the clickable elements are spaced out properly.
By following these steps, you can fix the “clickable elements too close together” issue and ensure that your mobile website provides a positive user experience. Remember that it’s important to prioritize the user experience on mobile devices, as this is where the majority of web traffic comes from. By making your website mobile-friendly, you can improve engagement, boost search rankings, and ultimately drive more conversions.
Content Wider than Screen
“Content wider than screen” is a common mobile usability error that occurs when the width of the content on a web page is greater than the screen size of the mobile device. This issue can make it difficult for users to navigate your site and can result in a poor user experience.
How to Fix This Issue?
If you are facing “content wider than screen” issue on your wordpress website you can fix this issue by defining the relative values in CSS declarations, instead of absolute values. This can help ensure that your website’s content adjusts to the screen size of the device.
Another common cause of the issue is images with an absolute width that is wider than the screen. To fix this, assign all images a max-width of 100% instead of an absolute value, such as 1000px. This ensures that the images will adjust to the screen size of the device and prevent the content from being wider than the screen.
Example –
img {
max-width: 100%;
display: block;
}
For Table To avoid this error, you should use only relative values for the width of tables in your CSS declarations.
Example –
@media screen and (max-width: 600px) {
th, td {
display: block;
width: 100%;
}
By using relative values for the width of tables and other elements, you can ensure that your website is mobile-friendly and accessible to all users, regardless of the device they’re using.
Viewport Not Set [to “device-width”]
This error occurs when “viewport meta tag” is not added on the website. viewport meta tag is a HTML tag used to control the size and scaling of a webpage when viewed on mobile devices.
Below is the example of a viewport meta tag –
<meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0″>
How to fix this issue?
It is very easy to resolve this issue by adding the above given viewport meta tag in your website you can easily fix this issue. To add this code in your wordpress website you simply need to go to the appearance – theme file editor and under the theme files you can easily find the header.php. Simply paste this code head section.
Uses Incompatible Plugins
Incompatible plugins can cause Mobile Usability Errors when they don’t work well on mobile devices. Some plugins may have features that don’t work on mobile devices or that affect the website’s performance or appearance negatively.
Some plugins are using technologies like Flash or Silverlight that are not compatible with many browsers causing problems.
How to Fix it?
To fix this issue you need to review all your plugins and identify those plugins that are causing issues and remove or replace them with other plugins that are compatible with chrome and other browsers.
Conclusion
To get better search engine ranking and user experience, having a mobile-friendly website is essential because as I stated above , around half of the users are coming from mobile devices and it is important that they get the best experience on your website. In this article i have mentioned the types of error and best guide to resolve mobile usability issue from your WordPress website.
What to Do after Resolving these Mobile Usability Issues from the Website?
After fixing mobile usability issues from your website you simply need to go to the search console and submit validation fix requests. After a few days google consider your request and mark your pages as mobile friendly.
Are there any plugins to resolve mobile usability errors easily?
Yes, there are many plugins that can help you to resolve many of the mobile usability issues without doing lots of effort. You can get a detailed guide to resolve mobile usability error from wordpress website using plugin by clicking here.
