Fresh

Who has a phone with a mobile browser? Um…EVERYONE! Yeah, nowadays, people don’t just have cell phones, they have a mini computer in the palm of their hand able to find anything online within seconds.

On the top of everyone’s priority list, in the web world, is how to go mobile. One option is to build a whole new version of your site so that it will look good on a mobile device, but not everyone has the time and/or budget for that. If your site is already in WordPress, then you have another option…plugins!

There are several handy plugins that will make your current site mobile friendly. I’ve been tasked to find a plugin for our blogs here at eROI. After doing my research, I’ve found a few that seem to top the list and do a great job out of the box.

MobilePress

Most of the customization for MobilePress lies in the theme files. This plugin allows you to create custom themes for different devices. They work very similarly to the blog themes, where you name the theme in the stylesheet, upload to the plugin theme folder, and then select your themes on the theme page within the plugin options. The plugin also automatically resizes images that are wider than 300px. A few things you can customize from the plugin options page include the blog title and description. If your blog title is long, you can assign a mobile title so that it fits better on a smaller screen. The default output design is pretty flat (with hues of grey and blue) but overall it is very readable and classic.

WPtouch

WPtouch caters its design theme to mobile devices with a touch screen. The default devices are: Android, Aspen, BlackBerry Storm 9500, BlackBerry Storm 9530, cupcake, Dream, Incognito, iPhone, iPod, Opera Mini, WebMate, and webOS.

There is a field under ‘Advanced Options,’ on the plugin settings page, where you can add additional devices. Within the general settings, you can select the mobile home page, change the title, exclude categories, and set options for font and post listing. Although this plugin doesn’t have customizable themes like MobilePress, there is an area in the settings where you have some font and color options. There is a pool of icon images that come with the plugin, but you are also able to create and upload your own to use throughout your mobile site version.

Finally, you can add code for analytics or custom css. Because this plugin caters to touch screens, you may want to use MobilePress or another plugin as a backup for non-touch devices. The design of this plugin reflects the design specs of the Apple app store, consisting of rounded corners, shiny buttons, and a very clean look and feel.

WordPress Mobile Pack

WordPress Mobile Pack can be best described as a combination of MobilePress and WPtouch. Out of the box, the design displays shiny and rounded for the iPhone, Android, Nokia and other WebKit devices. For all other devices, the design is more flat, but has a nice layout that is very easy to navigate. Out of the box, the plugin comes with a few color theme variations.

In addition to those themes, like MobilePress, you can create your own theme and select it from the drop-down menu on the Mobile Switcher settings page. Once you select your theme, you can further customize your mobile settings, for example, number of posts, post list display, teaser length, auto image shrinking, etc.

This plugin also offers something called a barcode widget. I’d never heard of this before, so I did some additional research. What this does, if added, is create a barcode image that you can place on your desktop/laptop site. When visitors see this barcode, if their device has a compatible reader, they can scan the barcode with their device and be taken directly to the mobile site, which can then be bookmarked. Mobile Barcodes are a new technology and only a small number of phones have the capability to scan them. It looks like the trend will lead to using mobile barcodes to have a direct connection to consumers to promote special offers, which is already being used in Japan. Check out the article ‘Mobile Barcodes 101‘ for further information.

What’s great about this plugin is the confidence you have in your site rendering across devices. Without having to do anything, you can be sure that your site will look great in the newer devices and it will degrade nicely for the older ones (without having to use multiple plugins).

Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin for WordPress

The Wapple Architect Mobile plugin is the most robust of the plugins I’ve come across thus far. There is an extra step you must complete before you can use the plugin, but it’s very simple. You must register for a developer key at wapple.net. Once you receive your key and enter it on the plugin settings page, you are good to go!

The plugin creates an entirely separate menu in the WordPress admin navigation column. Within the menu are several pages to customize your mobile site. The Basic menu lets you set title and description. You can upload a mobile site header image and set the background color. There are also settings for the footer area. The Advanced menu allows for meta tags and keywords, and you can also set redirects and error messages. There is a menu for Mobile Advertising if that fits your site. Additionally, there are menus to customize the home page, posts page, regular pages, the archives page, and the search.

Finally, this plugin comes with six built in themes and also the ability to create a custom theme. If you select the custom theme, the plugin provides boxes where you can edit the css straight from the plugin page. Using the custom themes can be a great option to get started, otherwise, matching your site styles to the mobile version can be accomplished through the custom theme css. Don’t get scared away by the complexity of this plugin because it could end up giving you exactly what you want.

Choosing any of these, or other mobile WordPress plugins, is a great way to make your site optimized for a mobile device. All of the plugins offer some type of customization, some more than others, but if you don’t choose to change anything, the out of the box designs are quite nice. There are many plugin options out there, so you are likely to find something you like.

YAY MOBILE!

P.S. Fresh is currently using the WPtouch plugin. :-)