Given the rise in availability of smartphones and mobile browsing in general, more people than ever have easy access to their favorite websites at all times. Given this increase in the users’ time spent browsing on their phones, webmasters must work to ensure their sites are compatible with these devices.
Luckily with WordPress, the plug-in functionality makes adapting your site easy. Here are 10 that could help:
1. WordPress Mobile Edition
WordPress Mobile Edition was developed by CrowdFavorite to detect mobile browsers and automatically render a mobile version. The interface is simple and the user is shown a clean, mobile-friendly layout. The plug-in is particularly powerful in that it can load different themes based on the device’s operating system (iOS, Windows Mobile, etc.). The list of devices to detect is also editable.
2. WordPress Mobile Pack
WordPress Mobile Pack is another on the list of top 10 WordPress mobile device plugins. The plugin automatically resizes images when it detects a mobile browser and paginates long lists of pages (and posts), reducing load times for each page and allowing users faster access to content. The plugin also comes with a mobile-specific admin panel and is compatible with widgets (making it easy to display advertisements that sometimes get lost with some mobile plugins).
3. MobilePress
Much like WordPress Mobile Edition, MobilePress allows for browser-specific themes, which can be helpful to ensure a consistent user-experience across devices. MobilePress also allows open development on its platform so there’s a wide variety of themes available.
4. Mobile Admin
The key strength of the Mobile Admin plugin is that it also includes a mobile friendly admin panel for on-the-go webmasters. This feature actually includes two different forms of this admin panel for both Javascript and non-Javascript (“Lite version”) compatible phones. The mobile admin feature is useful when you need to edit posts, add tags, or moderate comments while away from your computer.
5. Mobilize
The Mobilize plug-in works like many other mobile plugins in that it automatically detects mobile browsers, but the difference with this plugin is that it will forward the user to the Mippin server which will handle the re-formatting of the site. The Mippin server automatically resizes and converts images and videos to be rendered more easily by mobile devices.
6. WPhone Admin Plug-In
The WPhone Admin Plug-in is another mobile plugin which provides the site’s admin panel to a webmaster as a mobile interface. As with the Mobile Admin plug-in, the product features two interfaces: Javascript and non-Javascript for cross-device compatibility and will automatically detect devices which are capable of rendering Javascript or not.
7. Mowser
The Mowser plug-in is another product which features blog-style reformatting for a mobile interface. The simple interface allows visitors to access your site more easily and provide a better user experience.
8. Wetomo WordPress to Mobile
Wetomo WordPress to Mobile will direct a user accessing your site to their own servers which will render a mobile version of the site. The version of the site that renders is optimized on a per-device basis for a high level of compatibility across all potential user experiences.
9. WP viewMobile
WP viewMobile is another product that automatically detects mobile browsers and redirects the device to a mobile-optimized version. Much like similar products, WP viewMobile resizes images or otherwise removes them if the browser doesn’t support images.
Michele Golden is an aspiring blogger and journalist who enjoys taking pictures of her home state of Vermont. When shes not blogging, shes promoting Windows reseller hosting as a new business model.