The Mobile Bandwagon! – WordPress Plugins to Make Your Blog Phone-Friendly
Author: Jim | Filed under: Observations, Wordpress
Over the course of the past several years, the internet as we know it has been evolving. As someone who interacts with marketers, small business owners and news sources on a daily basis, I can tell you that there is one clear trend: MOBILE!
As more and more individuals pick up smartphones (20% annual growth rates have been downright common from the major providers according to Gartner Research) the web will naturally evolve to a state where users are checking websites on the go at all times. As you can see from the image above… my readers here at Jimvesting.com have grown to almost 2% of all views (which is hundreds of users each week!). This may not seem like a lot, but at the start of the year this number was almost zero. The way I see it, this mobile trend is real and you need to climb on the bandwagon!
Three WordPress Plugins to Get Your Blog Into the Mobile Age
I buckled down and bought a Blackberry the other week, so I have had the chance to try out all of the best mobile plugins for WordPress to see how they look in real life on a smart phone. You should note that all three of these plugins are fantastic, with only marginal benefits/disadvantages, and installing these will not impact the normal view of your blog… so it is a quick benefit to your readers with only 5 minutes of your time to install it! 
1. WordPress Mobile Edition (Jimvesting RECOMMENDED!)
WordPress Mobile Edition puts a great spin on your phone, and supports slightly different views for every phone that I have ever heard of (and then some!). It comes with the mobile “Carrington” theme which works great on phones and will probably load faster than your existing blogs. Everything is clear to see, and installation is easy to figure out. It even works with WP Super Cache and other popular plugins!
2. WPTouch: Mobile Plugin
The “WPTouch” plugin is definitely the best looking of the bunch, and it is even optimized to run faster than ever. This plugin is geared toward mobile users that are looking at your website on the iPhone (or another touch-screen phone). If you and your users are using touch-screen phones, I would recommend that you use this one over “WordPress Mobile Edition”… but I favor comparability a bit too much. 
3. “MobilePress” WordPress Plugin
MobilePress is another top-notch browser that will identify what phone you are using and pair the browser to meet your preferences. This one is slightly lower on the totem pole than the other two, but the theme that MobilePress uses is quite sleek and if you like it… you should use it! Go ahead and cruise over to their website and check it out.
Bottom Line: All of these plugins will launch your blog into a mobile-friendly state, which will benefit anywhere from 1-5% of your readers right now… and potentially up to 15-20% of them a year down the road! For a five minute installation, it’s not a whole lot of work to bring your blog into the 21st century. 
-Jimvesting
UPDATE: One of our readers, James Pearce from Tripleodeon.com, suggested the “WordPress Mobile Pack” as an alternative solution. This one also combines an administration feature for your phones! Though I recommend simply downloading a supplementary smartphone application, I like this idea a lot so check it out!
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Did you also get a chance to look at the WordPress Mobile Pack?
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-pack/
Just wondering in case there was anything you were looking for that it didn’t provide
James Pearce´s last blog ..The WordPress Mobile Pack is back! And here’s how.
I’m always on the lookout for better plugins, so I checked yours out James. I think it is well worthy of competing against WordPress Mobile Edition! I’m right now considering trying it, because the mobile admin and the mobile ad widget seems very cool.
Static | ahnternet´s last blog ..How I Moved My WordPress To Another Host
Twitter: @jimvesting
December 28, 2009 at 1:35 pm #
Let us know how you like it!
Twitter: @jimvesting
December 28, 2009 at 1:28 pm #
Hmm! That looks very interesting… I actually didn’t see that one extensively because it seemed to be more of a tool for administering a blog on a phone. I think that it is quite interesting, but personally I would recommend simply downloading an App for your SmartPhone (for example, there is a “WordPress” BlackBerry App) and using that to write posts, manage comments, etc. on the go. Then, you can combine the phone app for administration with one of the three aforementioned plugins… this should be a lighter solution that won’t tie down as many of your site’s resources as the WordPress Mobile Pack. However, you are on to a good plugin if you want to knock it all out in one shot! I’ll add it to the post
I’ve been a long proponent of making blogs mobile-friendly. I don’t have ahnternet set as mobile-friendy, but I currently have one blog related to academics setup for mobiles simply because everyday, the blog will post a vocab list students can memorize. Enabling it mobile means we get a lot of traffic through iPhone/iPod Touch especially. Android hasn’t been around for too long yet, so we don’t see big stats there, but definitely pretty significant for Apple’s devices.
I agree with you Jim that over the years, we’re going to see a significant increase in the number of people accessing the blogs through a mobile device. 20% might be pushing it, as netbooks are being widely used lately and Apple coming out with their Tablet means more people jumping on the netbook ship. However, a near 10% seems very possible within a year.
By the way, I like WordPress Mobile Edition too.
Static | ahnternet´s last blog ..How I Moved My WordPress To Another Host
Great post.. Have been looking for a mobile plugin, but to lazy to install..lol Your post has given me the kick.
Also welcome, back.. good to see you posting again
John Paul Aguiar´s last blog ..Happy Holidays and My Personal Thank You
Thanks a ton for this, was having problems with mobify.
fas´s last blog ..Questions & Answers – Round 7 (Car Buying Decisions)
Twitter: @AgentDeepak
December 28, 2009 at 3:08 pm #
I have not tried to make my blog ready for mobile. I will testing the plugins you mentioned thanks.
Agent Deepak´s last blog ..Rest a Bit, its Holidays
Twitter: @DennisEdell
January 2, 2010 at 9:29 am #
You have to change you theme just for these plugins?
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..PLEASE COMMENT – Have You EVER Used The Added Feature Of My Subscribe To Comments Plugin??
Great plugin, gotta find the time to install it