With the number of people online, using mobile phones is increasing day by day it has become very important to have a mobile version of your own blog. After writing the post on mobile marketing on my blog I realized that there are a lot of bloggers out there who don?t know to set up a mobile version of their blogs so I decided to write this post.
But before I jump into the step-by-step guide let me walk you through why it is important to have a mobile version of your blog.
You may already have seen that mega websites like Facebook, Google and other big blogs like Huffington Post, How-To-Geek, Famous Bloggers etc have mobile version of their website. Its because of the fact that more people hang around with their mobile and use it for browsing the Internet and finding stuff now a days like never before.
These big brands know the value of having mobile version of their website and so should you. Today with more people using mobile than internet (according to a study) you need to have a mobile version of your blog so that if the visitors somehow stumble on your website using their mobile phone, your blog looks clean and loads up fast.
There are a lot of disadvantages of a desktop based websites/blog when loaded using a mobile phone. Some of them are:
- Large Page Sizes ? As the desktop version of a website/blog contains a lot of stuff, the page size is very large especially when we talk about loading them up in a mobile browser.
- More Page Load Time ? Large sized WebPages need more time to load and as the speed of internet on mobile phones is limited, the load time can piss off your visitors.
- More content ? In the desktop version of your website you have all sorts of different components such as sidebar, footer, fancy css and java scripts etc. These cause distraction when browsing your blog using a mobile browser as the size of the screen is very small.
So it?s best to have a mobile version of your blog so that your visitors will feel more comfortable browsing through and read your content. After all helping visitors solve their problem is the only thing that is going to make them stick with you. Isn?t it?
So let me process to the step-by-step guide.
If you have finally made up your mind that you need a mobile version of your WordPress blog follow these instructions and by the end of this post you?d have made your own mobile version blog.
1. Go to Plugins > Add Plugins from your WordPress backend and search for WordPress Mobile Pack. This plugin automatically detects when a user is trying to access your blog using a mobile phone and redirects to the optimized mobile version of your blog.
2. From the list of results install WordPress Mobile Pack and click Activate button to install the plugin that comes on the next page.
3. After installing the plugin, go to Appearance. You?ll see three new tabs there Mobile Theme, Mobile Widget and Mobile Switcher. These are used to configure how your mobile website looks. First go to Mobile Themes. In this page you have all the necessary options to make changes to you mobile blog. Keep in mind to make the following changes to the setting for best results.
4. Now get your mobile phone and try to open your website from its browser. You?ll see the difference. All the fluff is gone and only pure content is left.
5. There are two more options that this plugin provides: Mobile Widget ? which is used for enable? widget and Mobile Swithcer ? which is used for selecting a theme. I don?t recommend enabling the sidebar widgets as it creates hindrance and does not look good.
6. The website looks raw when you first install it with just text in it. You can change the theme using the Mobile Switcher. There are four themes to choose from. Choose the one that suits your blog the most.
This way you can convert your desktop based blog in to a mobile version blog. If you are an advanced user and know about HTML and CSS then you can go to Themes > Editor and customize the theme as per your requirement. This gives you the power to add your blog?s logo, alter font sizes and color of the mobile version blog.
So after installing the plugin and tweaking up the source files a bit, here how my blog now looks like on a mobile browser:
This post is written by Ram Shengale. He is a seasoned internet marketer and online business consultant from India. He blogs at Gyantastic where he writes about online businesses, internet marketing and blogging. And a matter of fact is ? he too has a twitter account. If you wish to write for HBB, kindly check this.
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On February 1, 2013 by Ram Shengale in WordPress
About Ram Shengale Ram is an experienced internet marketer and online business consultant from India. He blogs at Gyantastic where he writes great in-depth posts on online businesses, internet marketing and blogging. And a matter of fact is - he too has a twitter account.Source: http://hellboundbloggers.com/2013/02/01/make-mobile-version-blog-free/
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