11 Ways to Create a Mobile Friendly WordPress Site
Mobile technology is going big. Every other user is now viewing your website from their iPhone or other smart phones. It is essential that you create a mobile friendly version of your WordPress site. Majority of top sites and blogs have already made their sites mobile friendly, but there are tons of other sites and blogs that lacks a mobile friendly version. In this article, we will share some ways you can create a mobile friendly version of your WordPress blog for your users and for yourself.
For Users
In this section we will share all the ways that will create a mobile friendly version of WordPress for your users.
1. Mobify
Mobify is a free service that makes WordPress, Drupal and other websites mobile-friendly. Supports iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and 5000+ other devices. Many top brands including, MTV, Sitepoint, Boingboing, Smashingmagazine, Discover Magazine and others are using Mobify. WPBeginner’s mobile version is also powered by mobify. Mobify allows you to customize your site design and it is a great pack for designers. WordPress mobify plugin.
2. Mofuse
Mofuse has a free option to make your blog mobile friendly for various devices including, iPhone, Android, Blackberry and others. Top blogs like Mashable, Readwriteweb, Makeuseof are using Mofuse. Mofuse displays your RSS Feeds to your users. Their free option does not give you enough freedom which is why we did not use their service, but it is very easy to setup. They also have a WordPress Mofuse Plugin.
3. WordPress Mobile Edition
WordPress Mobile Edition is a plugin by Crowd Favorite. This plugin shows an interface designed for a mobile device when visitors come to your site on a mobile device. Mobile browsers are automatically detected, the list of mobile browsers can be customized on the settings page.
4. WPTouch
WPTouch is a mobile plugin/theme for your WordPress website. It automatically transforms your WordPress blog into a web-application experience when viewed from an iPhoneTM, iPod touchTM, AndroidTM, or BlackBerry StormTM touch mobile device. WPTouch has a very good admin options panel. Make sure you check out their gallery for screenshots.
5. WPTap
WPTap offers both free and paid themes that lets you display a mobile friendly version to touchscreen phones like the iPhone, iPod Touch, Android and Blackberry. It is compatible with other WordPress plugins that can be used with older devices. This plugin leaves your regular theme as is, and it only displays the tap theme when a smartphone/touch phone user accesses the site.
6. WordPress Mobile Pack
The WordPress Mobile Pack is a complete toolkit to help mobilize your WordPress site and blog. It includes a mobile switcher to select themes based on the type of user that is visiting the site, a selection of mobile themes, extra widgets, device adaptation and a mobile administration panel to allow users to edit the site or write new posts when out and about.
7. MobilePress
MobilePress is a free WordPress plugin which turns your WordPress blog into a mobile friendly blog when viewed on a cell phone. MobilePress also allows you to create custom mobile themes for different handheld devices and mobile browsers such as the iPhone, Opera Mini and Windows Mobile.
For Administrators
In this section, we will share how you can create a mobile friendly WordPress Admin Panel for administrators (you). This will allow you to manage comments and create new posts using your mobile device.
8. WordPress for iPhone
Official iPhone app that lets you write posts, upload photos, edit pages, and manage comments on your blog from your iPhone or iPod touch. With support for both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (2.7 or higher), users of all experience levels can get going in seconds.
9. WordPress for Blackberry
Official WordPress for BlackBerry app allows you to write posts, upload photos and videos, edit pages, and manage comments. Both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (2.7 or higher) sites are supported.
10. WordPress for Android
Official WordPress for Android is an Open Source app that empowers you to write new posts, edit content, and manage comments with built-in notifications. Download it now and get blogging in no time.
11. WPhone
Wphone creates the option to use a custom admin interface designed for mobile phones. It has two options called Rich and Lite. Rich option is designed for the iPhone / iPod Touch and other phones supporting full Javascript and CSS featuring fancy AJAX and sliding menus. Lite option is a lightweight, simple version designed for all other phone types (no Javascript or anything else required).
Which plugin are you using? Share your opinions about these plugins in the comments below. If we missed a one that you would like us to include feel free to suggest it in the comments. Also, if you find this article useful, don’t forget to share it with others.
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great info, thanks would definitely try it
Great tips guys…never really gave this much thought until I saw this post and it’s definitely something I should bear in mind in the near future.
Interesting points thoroughly explained and easy to understand.
Luke Etheridge
Nice roundup. Gotta love the options!
Gotto try out one of these to make my new blog mobile-friendly.
I use the WordPress Mobile Edition plug-in for WordPress, it is a mobile theme that installs as a plug-in and detects browser type and displays a greatly simplified blog site for blackberry, iphone or mobile phones and you can customize what phones you want to show the mobile theme to. So I can see why it is the top of the list.
Mobile friendly is definitely the way to success!
Thank you for this article! Very helpful!
Nice article. Thanks for sharing this infos, I will try Mobify on my wordpress blog
Osmobi is giving out keys to make any wordpress site mobile. Try it
I created a wordpress template based off the jQTouch jQuery Plug-in.
http://projects.stocksfoundation.com/jqpress_mobile_wordpress_template
That’s all is great mobile plugin for wordpress publishing, but it’s better to write your own code so you can handle and make it more compatible with any mobile device, remember not of all mobile user using touch device, so any touch effect you use on your mobile plugin, like JQuery or etc won’t work on it…
Let us share some more ways you can create a mobile friendly version of your WordPress blog. The first one will be our FREE mobile compatible WordPress theme Möbius. And the second one will be our service MobilizeToday.com. Please, visit our site to see some examples of our work http://www.mobilizetoday.com/examples
With so many WP Bloggers out there, this is an excellent piece to understand the value of having a mobile version for your WP blog. Local Search Marketing is also an area that WP bloggers need to stay on top of.
I thought about using a couple of these tools to convert my WP Blog, but opted instead to build a “companion” version v. the MoFuse or plug-in approach and thus far, its doing ok.
I have been using WPtap themes/plugin on many of my sites. They are really nice. Great design and functionalities, and most important, they have real passion to develop the best products. You should definitely take a look at their themes.
Mobile browsers are still kind of crude if you compare it to the desktop browsers we use on PC.”`,