At the start of this year, I stated that one of my goals for 2008 was to create a mobile friendly version of Simply-Basic.com. Well, January isn’t even over, and I’m proud to say I’ve fulfilled my goal! Simply-Basic is now mobile device friendly. When you point your mobile device to the blog, it recognizes it automatically and displays a simpler, mobile friendly version.

Why make a mobile version? With the growth of mobile devices that are Wi-Fi enabled, it is becoming more and more essential to have your website accessible to mobile users. I often read blogs on my phone that runs Windows Mobile 6. Sites like Gmail and CNN automatically redirect the browser to a version of the website that fits in the cell phone’s smaller screen and leaves out images to make loading quicker. I find myself visiting sites that do this much more frequently then those that don’t when I’m using my phone to browse the internet (school, work, etc).

So how can you do this with Wordpress? It’s actually extremely easy to “mobilize” your blog. When I was working on mine, I first thought that I could write a script to recognize the mobile device that would then divert the browser to a page that displays a simple RSS feed of the blog. Of course, then I got smart and did a Google search for a plugin. Alex King has written a plugin that makes your Wordpress display a mobile theme if a mobile device accesses your blog. It’s top-notch, and very easy to install and configure. Here’s how:

Configuring the Plugin

First, download the WordPress Mobile Edition plugin. To install the plugin, upload wp-mobile.php into your “plugins” folder. Then, upload the wp-mobile folder into your “themes” folder. After you activate the plugin, you’re done. You won’t be able to tell it’s working unless you actually visit your blog from a mobile device.

Examples

I visited my blog on my mobile phone and took a few screenshots. The images below (actual screenshots from my phone) show what the mobile version of Simply-Basic.com looks like. The image on the left is the upper part of the homepage. The image on the right is the lower portion of the website.

You can see from these images that the home page displays recent posts and pages of the blog. There is also a link that when clicked on, directs the visitor to the non-mobile, “standard” edition of the blog.

Reading posts is easy, as one would expect (below left). Visitors can also read and posts comments (below right).

Customizing Your Mobile Theme

Customizing the mobile theme of your blog is just like editing your blogs standard theme. Simply navigate to the index.php file inside the “wp-mobile” directory that you uploaded to your themes folder. Edit this to your liking. I changed the title of mine to include “Mobile Version”. To do this, simply find <?php bloginfo('name'); ?> and add “: Mobile Version” after it. Customize the rest to your liking.

Conclusion

This plugin seems like a no-brainer, must have to me. It’s so easy to install and requires no configuration, that it seems plain silly not to have it installed. With mobile devices on the rise, why not have a friendly version that lets them read your blog with ease. If you let them read it on their mobile, their more likely to read it later on their computer and their RSS reader. If you install the plugin and don’t have a mobile device to verify it’s working, let me know and I’ll visit it on my phone and send you an email/comment. Time to mobilize, my friends.