GOOGLE MOBILE SITE CERTIFICATION EXAM ‘PASSING TIPS ‘
The tech giant Google has begun offering an exam aimed at mobile site developers with its brand new certification program, which tests a number of skills including how to improve site speeds, best practices in mobile UX design, and progressive web apps.
Why the New Certification
The point of the exam (or rather, the point of acing the exam), is to prove to potential Developers that you have “a demonstrated ability to build and optimize high-quality sites, and it allows you to promote yourself as a Google Certified mobile site developer.”
And, as the tech company points out since most site visitors will leave a mobile page if it takes more than three seconds to load, it’s well worth it to ensure that things are as efficient as possible on small screens. Google’s main aim with this new exam is to drive mobile improvement among developers with the average load time for a mobile landing page is 22 seconds, Google points out.
That Google’s mobile site certification exam isn’t focused in particular on any operating system (like Android or iOS). It does, however, have some content around Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages project (which you may know better as AMP). In any case, this is one certification that may be worth checking out.
What Does the Exam About
The new certification program is aimed at agencies and mobile site developers and exams cover everything from the basics of why mobile sites matter to how to improve mobile site speed, effective mobile UX design and more advanced topics like progressive web apps.
As Google notes, passing the exam is meant to show that you have “a demonstrated ability to build and optimize high-quality sites, and allows you to promote yourself as a Google Certified mobile site developer.”
A lot of the content in the study guide focuses on site speed. As Google notes, the majority of mobile site visitors will leave a site if it takes more than three seconds to load, yet the average load time for a mobile landing page is 22 seconds (and if those users leave without ever fully loading the site, they aren’t likely to click on any Google ads either, of course).
Structure of this exam
Understanding the structure of the test will better help you to understand what you’re in for once you begin the exam. This exam is made up of 70 questions for which you have 90 minutes to answer. Passing is 80%, but if you don’t pass you can re-take the exam after seven days.
As with many other Google certification exams, the questions are a mix of multiple choice and true/false. The best part is that once you pass this exam, you don’t have to worry about passing it again for another 12 months!
While there are 70 questions on the test, we can break them down into broader categories so that you can have a better idea of what areas are more important for you to focus. Let’s start with the basics.
The exam will test you across the 4 study guide modules available.
- Why mobile sites matter
- Improve mobile site speed
- Create an effective mobile UX
- Advanced web technologies
The Basics
You will definitely encounter some questions about the basics of mobile on this exam. For instance, questions about what time of day mobile traffic peaks or how long it takes mobile users to make a purchase-related conversion. My advice is to read up on the mobile stats that are in the Google materials, as you will find a few of them on the test. Also, these are the questions that you’ll want to make sure you answer correctly, as there will be plenty of more complicated questions within the exam.
Conversion Tracking
The test also presents quite a few questions about conversion tracking, so make sure you invest some time learning about how mobile conversions are recorded. A few items that you should keep on your radar are how app conversions are tracked, how calls are tracked, and specifics like SDK tracking.
Bidding
Throughout the exam, I encountered a few questions about bidding. To prep for this, make sure that you have a solid understanding of the different bidding strategies available, such as automatic bidding and flexible bidding. Think about how these bidding strategies can be used within a mobile campaign, as well as bid adjustments.
Reporting
Reporting was also a common theme on this exam. With mobile comes a whole arsenal of different reports — and lots of accompanying analytics. I fielded questions about the mobile app acquisition report, mobile app analytics behavior report, and the app overview report, just to name a few. Know and understand the differences between each one and what each can offer you, as there will definitely be a few questions about these.
Apps
One thing is certain, there are plenty of questions that address apps from all different directions. Things to stay on top of include:
· App downloads
· App remarketing
· App engagement ads
· In-app display ads
· App install ads
· App conversions
· Mobile app analytics
Take the time to get to know about all of these features, as there will be related items to address on the exam.
Ad Extensions
Though I wasn’t expecting it, there were a handful of questions about ad extensions for mobile. Keep site link extensions, store visit extensions, and location extensions at the forefront of your mind while taking this exam.
Conversions
There was quite a bit about conversions on this exam. Study up on call conversions and cross-device conversions so that you can have a better handle when these questions are asked I also found a few references to codeless conversion tracking solutions and how they can be used with mobile. Consider attribution when reviewing these items, as you may encounter a question that addresses this topic.
Display Campaigns
Though I really wasn’t expecting it, I did encounter some very general questions about Display campaigns within the exam. I was actually excited about that because it gave me a break from some of the more technical stuff that was on the rest of the exam. Still, you want to make sure that you get these questions right, so take the time to brush up on the Display Network basics.
Get Google Certified
Overall, the exam was challenging. While there were some basics, the content also had a highly technical side to it. These are things that you wouldn’t be able to infer from the context of the question.
Want to take the first step to gaining the Mobile Sites certification? Check out this study guide so that you can study up before you take the exam and demonstrate that you have a strong expertise in the requirements for building high-quality mobile sites.
