Mobile-first indexing: Google judges the phone version
Since its switch to mobile-first indexing, Google crawls and ranks sites as a phone sees them. If your desktop page has a full description and the mobile page shows a shortened one, Google ranks the short one. If a menu, a table or reviews disappear on mobile, they disappear for Google too.
Check this first: open your three most important pages on a phone and compare them line by line with the desktop version.
Mobile page speed on a real connection
Google measures page experience with three Core Web Vitals: the main content should appear within 2.5 seconds, the page should react to a tap within 200 milliseconds, and it should not jump around while loading. Run your pages in PageSpeed Insights on the mobile tab. When your site has enough visitors, the top of the report shows real measurements from Chrome users, which matter more than the lab score below it.
The causes we find most often on Moroccan sites:
- Images from a phone camera uploaded at full size. Resize to the width they are shown at and use a modern format such as WebP.
- Page builders loading dozens of style and script files for a simple page.
- Sliders at the top that load several large images before anything else.
- Slow shared hosting that takes over a second to answer.
- Chat widgets and trackers loading before the content.
Pop-ups that hide the page
A newsletter box or an offer that covers the content as soon as a visitor arrives from Google makes the page harder to use, and Google says such intrusive interstitials can hurt how a page ranks. Cookie notices and legal age checks are fine. Move offers into the page or show them later.
Mobile-friendly design: easy to use with a thumb
- Text readable without zooming, at least 16 pixels.
- Buttons and links large enough and far enough apart to tap.
- Forms with the right keyboard: numbers for phone fields, email for email fields.
- No content wider than the screen, so the page never scrolls sideways.
The call and the WhatsApp button
On a phone, the shortest path from search to customer is a tap. A phone number written as a tel: link, and a WhatsApp link that opens a chat directly, turn a visit into a conversation. Google ended its own Business Profile chat in July 2024, so for many Moroccan businesses WhatsApp on the site is now the main way people write to them.
How to check if your site is mobile-friendly, in ten minutes
- Open the site on your phone on mobile data, not office Wi-Fi.
- Time how long the main content takes to appear.
- Compare the text with the desktop version.
- Try to call and to send a WhatsApp message from the page.
- Run PageSpeed Insights on the same page and note the three Core Web Vitals.
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