If you haven’t already heard, Google is planning to drop a huge algorithm bomb on April 21st that will reward mobile-friendly pages and punish those that are not. Beware! Even though your website is responsive or has a separate mobile version, you may not be in the clear.

Not to fear however, here are some quick checks to prep your site for Googlebot‘s fury.

Don’t Block Your Visuals!

Make sure that Googlebot can crawl all of your JavaScript, CSS and image files, since they can add to your organic ranking. You can make sure all of these items are crawlable by using the “Fetch as Google” feature in Google Webmaster Tools.

Be sure to also check the renderings of your mobile pages using this tool to make sure your website is compatible for mobile users. The render tool will provide a snapshot of your mobile page as it would display to your audience, as well as how Googlebot sees it. See some differences? The tool will also provide reasons behind the differences between renders.

If you use separate URLs for your mobile webpages, make sure to test both mobile and desktop URLs to confirm the redirect is recognized and crawlable as well.

Avoid Faulty Redirects and Cross Links

For websites who do not employ responsive design and utilize a mobile redirect instead, be sure that all redirects are correct. Webmaster tools can help you find URL errors in order to fix them. This can be found under Crawl > Crawl Errors and selecting the Smartphone tab.

You can also set up your server so that it redirects smartphone users to the equivalent URL to your mobile site, and avoid faulty redirects altogether.

Use Mobile-Only 404’s 

Sometimes sites will serve content to desktop users accessing a URL, but show an error page to mobile users. If a single page on your site does not have a smartphone equivalent or show a 404 error in a smartphone, then it is better to direct users to the desktop version, rather than your mobile site.

Although there are plenty of other site optimizations to make, starting with these easy steps will definitely put your site ahead of the SEO game and ready for Google’s Mopocalypse! Good luck out there.