Optimizing Your Blog for an Enhanced Mobile Viewing

This is a guest post by Mike Swan.

We were thinking about getting on with some clever mind blowing lines that would totally convince our readers to take their websites and blogs mobile. But then we decided against it, simply because firstly, we know each one of us are in the habit of reading various novels and books on kindle, chatting on whatsapp or viber (which practically requires a smart phone) and well, we are a gadget crazy, tech freaky, handhelds obsessed generation – so really, we do not need any more convincing. Go Mobile! It is the next big thing in the world of web browsing. And well, if you need any more convincing to do, go through this brilliant infographic which covers the rise and prominence of mobile web browsing.

Now, when it comes to optimizing the blog for mobile screens, there are different options available for the bloggers. Let us have a look at 3 prime ways available for the bloggers to get a mobile optimized version of their blogs:

1. Plugins at your disposal

If you own a blog on Blogger, you get an easy mobile version of the same. However, with WordPress, the things get just a little bit more complicated. Although you do not get an instant mobile optimized version, there are various plugins that you may use to make your blog function perfectly on the mobile screens. If you own a blog on Wordpress, this is the easiest way for you to optimize it for mobile screens is by using any one of the following plugins that we are going to discuss below; read ahead to know more:

• Wapple Architect – it puts forth a mobile optimized version of your website to any visitor who is attempting to browse through your website from a mobile screen. And not just that, the plugin also gives full support to Google Adsense and AdMob, letting you profit from those features as well. Besides, you get to retain the current structure of the URL, instead of having to use a new sub domain, and as a result, the prime URL gets to enjoy the increased number of traffic and visitors.

• The WordPress Mobile Pack – It is a key plugin used for transforming blogs into various mobile sites in a jiffy, without any hassles at all. Besides, this plugin even allows the users to profit from AdMob and Google Adsense. Moreover, it allows the bloggers to have a look at the mobile analytics of the blog, in addition to the conventional desktop analytics.

• WPtouch – Just like Wapple Architect, WPtouch is another impressive and fully customizable WordPress plugin which offers due control to the users. And along with all the other functionalities, it also allows users to switch back to the desktop version of the website, should they feel the need to do so.

And if you are in the pursuit of something more concrete than merely plugins, here is another piece of important information for you to make your blog go Mobile.

2. Go Responsive

Going responsive is the latest in thing today, as against to developing a dedicated mobile website, with a mobile sub domain in it. Responsive themes, using liquid functionalities, have the particular quality of adjusting itself with the layout of the screen it has been viewed at.

A huge advantage of using responsive themes for mobilizing your blog is the very fact that it retains all of your sidebar content, even if the blog is being viewed from smart phones or tablets. This ensures that the ads on your blog are still visible to your visitors, irrespective of the parameters of the screen that they are using to view it.

You can find various responsive themes for your WordPress blog – internets is practically flooding with such snippets of information, or go through one of the ebooks to learn responsive design and perform the changes yourself. Also, you might just opt for a PSD to WordPress theme conversion company who would do the same for you.

And now, let us discuss certain easy steps that you can take on your own, to fix the situation.

3. Design, the smart way

You can easily make the website more flexible and durable, and optimize the same for an easy mobile viewing yourself, without even having to try out other complicated and tedious options available for mobilizing your blog. Intrigued already? Follow through the following few tips and optimize your blog for the mobile screens on your own:

• Increase the font in the body from whatever the current structure is, to a 14 px or 14 points. Even if the user is not attempting to view your blog from a small mobile screen, the change in font would help the readers with “less than perfect” (pun intended) vision, to easily go through your blog – so all in all, you will be providing an improved user experience anyway.

• Increase the spacing that you give in between the lines and the paragraphs to a 1.5 em – just check the options under the paragraph – spacing and you will find it. This allows the content to appear much less trampled on a mobile screen, and much more refined and adequately spaced on the desktops.

• Try to steer clear of drop down menus – we understand that at times drop downs are inevitable, and also they allow you to better organize the blog, but try to steer clear of them as far as possible. Otherwise the drop downs severely affect the mobile viewing experience.

• Ensure that there exists proper spacing between different elements of the navigation bar, the header, the footer, the side bar and the post Meta area. This will allow users to properly go through the content of the blog on their smart phones, and not accidentally click something else which they did not mean to. 

• Try and get rid of flash elements – flash costs you the functionality of the website – both on the desktop screens and on the small screens of mobile phones. So various slide shows etc, if they are not running on JavaScript or any other optimized language, and if they are out and out Flash, please do get rid of the same.

Our journey of taking your blog mobile ends here. We hope you appreciate the information shared and find it quite pragmatic and useful too. If you have got something to discuss, let’s get chatty over the comment section below.

About the author
Mike Swan is a specialist Web Designer at Markupcloud Ltd a PSD to wordpress conversion company. He possess a huge experience in technology domain and loves all things comes under web Design niche. He trying to spread his intangible knowledge to maximum people as can in order to make a equal knowledge platform.