Do you visit many blogs with your mobile phone? If you do, you’ll undoubtedly have noticed that most blogs are simply not intended for viewing on a phone’s small screen.
My blog is no different. Indeed, the design elements – banner image, sidebar, graphics and badges, overall layout, etc – make this blog a wholly impractical place to go to via just about any mobile phone.
It’s designed for display on a computer screen.
What’s needed is a version of your blog that is designed for display on a mobile phone and other small-screen mobile devices.
That means a focus on displaying the content (the text) in a way that’s easy to read on a small screen, easy to navigate it using a typical phone’s small buttons, and display hyperlinks in a way that makes it easy to spot them.
It also needs to be quick to load over the comparatively slow connection speed of a cellular network, or even the comparatively faster speed that you might get with a wi-fi-enabled mobile phone.
All this needs to be available in an easy-to-create way that doesn’t require you to spend hours coding and creating a mobile-specific version of your blog.
You’re in luck if you’re a WordPress user – there is such a tool. It’s a plugin called WordPress Mobile Edition, created by Alex King (one of the most generous contributors to the WordPress user community).
This plugin is simplicity itself. Upload the files, activate the plugin, and that’s it – the mobile version of your blog is done. It works (and looks) a treat as the photo suggests. Download the zip file and follow the simple instructions.
Take a look at this blog in your mobile phone to see – in your mobile’s browser, go to http://www.nevillehobson.com/wp-mobile.php
Having an easy-to-use version of your blog for small-screen mobile devices is becoming more important if you want to make your site easily accessible to visitors no matter what device they use to connect to the net.
Something else to think about, too. With a mobile-ready version of your blog, the focus is on your text content and what you say, not how it’s presented. As with subscribers to your RSS feed, no one will see the cool design you might have for your site.
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Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.
Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.
