With the rise of technology web developers are working to ensure that websites created for their clients can be viewed by the mass internet surfers using their cell phones to access the internet. The days of needing computers to get access to blogs, shopping, social networks, etc may soon be obsolete. Well at least for the non-business user anyway. Hence the reason for this article. Is your site compatible with mobile devices? Will your site content degrade well when it is viewed by IPhone/IPod, Android, Blackerry, IPad, and other mobile devices?
Creating websites today still requires that the site complies to search engines and provide ease of use for potential viewers. Through the years we have learned that "Content is still King", I'm talking about text content with images and visual components. Creating a website totally in Flash is still a big "No, no". Use of large images regardless if its been optimized for the web still creates a slow loading website. Creating one Style Sheet will load a site faster. Embedding video's is still a necessary component for many of the visual viewers. A web developer worth the title knows that the site should be developed for optimum exposure.
Many new site owners still want to have flashy websites with all the bells and whistles. However, any successful website owner knows that all the bells and whistles aren't worth losing potential customers.
So, how does one develop a website to comply with today's technology for optimum exposure?
Use a platform that provides you with all the necessary components to comply with search engines, ease of use for your potential site viewer as well as one that provide an easy management system for maintenance.
I have extensively tested Word Press the last several years since it the developers started implementing the framework into a bonafide CMS (Content Management System). This by far is the best Content Management System available, of course that is my point of view. Joomla is great, but end user management is a bear especially if the site owner wants a platform that's easy to add/delete content or add additional components without the need to hire a web developer. The two platforms are widely used for the development of websites. Both have components that can ensure your site is compatible with mobile browsers. However, it does require that your web developer knows which components to install because there are literally thousands of components and modules for Joomla and about the same amount of plugins for Word Press.
Unfortunately, many of the entities need to work together and from experience many of them do not. However, with the right combination a Word Press site will be developed to ensure optimum exposure, ease of use for site visitors with an easy management system. Joomla can provide the same impact but again, not with ease of management for the site owner.
If you are using Word Press for your site platform, the following additions to your site can ensure that your website will be viewable by mobile devices.
Theme:
Laptop/PC users: Carrington Blog
A rich blogger friendly theme with customizable header, colors and AJAX options; and developer friendly theme with atomic templates and an elegant override hierarchy.
Mobius
Dark and colorful theme. 3 skins. Compatible with touch-screen mobile phones: iPhone & iPod Touch, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Palm Pre, Symbian. Widget-ready sidebar. Optional twitter and facebook icons.
Codium Extend
Codium Extend is a very simple wordpress theme with all the new features in WordPress 3.0: personalized menus, choosing a color for the background, ready for translation ... This theme is ideal for anyone seeking simplicity with the full articles on the homepage! Bonus : this theme is optimized for handheld and mobile devices (iphone, ipad, and smartphone).
Note: It is not necessary to change your existing Theme Layout if it does well in testing. See links below. I have tested one of my sites with its existing theme and it was given a 5 rating by MobiReady and a 92% by W3C.
Mobile Device Theme: Carrington Mobile
A mobile-friendly theme for your blog. Best used with (and included with) the WordPress Mobile Edition plugin. Supports basic mobile browsers as well as advanced and touch-screen browsers with a display optimized for each. Built on the Carrington framework.
Word Press Plugin:
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.
Note: This plugin comes with several mobile themes. Do not use them. Instead use the Carrington Mobile theme when you create the settings.
Test your site for Mobile Compatibility. Whether your site is built using WordPress or not, the following sites will provide you information to see if your site is compatible with Mobile Devices.
MobiReady
The mobiReady testing tool evaluates mobile-readiness using industry best practices & standards. The free report provides both a score (from 1 to 5) and in-depth analysis of pages to determine how well your site performs on a mobile device.
W3C Mobile OK Checker
This checker performs various tests on a Web Page to determine its level of mobile-friendliness. The tests are defined in the mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0 specification. A Web Page is mobileOK when it passes all the tests. If you wish to validate specific content such as markup validitation, or RSS/Atom feeds, or CSS stylesheets, or to find broken links, there are other validators and tools available.
Note: The W3C site provides you detailed information where you will find the problems and what you need to do to fix the problem.
