A few mobile links for WordPress

Posted on by Janene McMahan

How do you make your WordPress site mobile friendly? Earlier today I spent a little bit of time downloading and testing a WordPress plugin designed to detect mobile devices and switch the view of your WordPress site to accommodate whatever tool the user was using (within reason).
[Mobile detection plug in: WP Mobile Detector]

I am cross-referencing this post a ‘how to’ because I have a few tips on what you should do. See the bottom of this post.

While looking for this plug in I came across a few blog posts that recommended specific WordPress themes or plugins to assist the designer looking to make their site mobile-friendly.

I personally like 1stGiantLeap ($25.00 from theme forest), dotMobi (also $25.00 from themeforest), iWorld ($30 from themeforest — see the live demo), Mobius (free for download), My Mobile Page ($25 from themeforest), Simple Mobile ($25 from themeforest).

No wonder I had a hard time finding them when I was using the keyword search through the WP dashboard for my site. They are not there!   I will not be purchasing any of these. I’m a try before you buy gal. I have downloaded the free Mobius, but have yet to try it.

Here are free options located on the WordPress site:

This is the seat of your pants path to success:

  • Go review freely available themes. Make a list of the ones you like. Grab them.
  • First back up your site. Yes, you heard me right.
  • Now review your widgets. Export them! Don’t know how? Follow the link to Sarah Gooding’s post at WPMU.org
    Perhaps YOU’RE NOT ABOUT to lose your settings. Cool. But what if you do? This is like car insurance – do you have that?
  • Now try on the theme. Yes, apply it. Review what it looks like on different mobile devices. I recommend making notes.
  • Try on another theme. Go ahead, you saved your widget settings, didn’t you?
  • Go through the free themes and plugins. If they just don’t do it for you, take a look at the for-cost options.
  • When you settle on a combination of new theme and/or plugin that supports mobile devices, please ask a slightly less techie friend or colleague to go to your site on their mobile device.
    Watch them interact with your site.