Most recently a prospective client sent me a list of requirements and sample websites she’d like to use as a model for her website. When exploring websites these days I look for several things. How they’re capturing the audience in list building,
are they participating in social media, do they have a blog, and are they mobile device compliant. That last one has been a sticking point for many websites. And the ones on her sample list were no different.

There are certain industries that consider Flash the epitome of web technology. Unfortunately, the developers of mobile devices didn’t get that memo.

Ever gone to a website on your smartphone or iPad and it was completely blank? How about you read a great blog post from your phone and there’s a video, you click the link and you get the message requesting you download Adobe Flash in order to view
it on your device? This would be just fine if that applied to your device.

What do you do?

I can see it now you rush to your computer, turn it on, and then go to that same blog post, click the link and watch the video. Right, sure!

We as blog owners would like to believe this is what will happen. I’m going to take a wild guess and say this is not happening 98% of the time.

We must:

Get mobile device compliant as quickly as possible.

A few weeks ago I set out to find the perfect plug-in to make my website look nice when viewing from a mobile phone.
I tried several different plug-ins looking for something simple with minimal steps following activation.

Here’s the list of plug-ins that I tried:

• WPTouch
• MobilePress
• WordPress Mobile Edition
• WPTap
• Wapple Mobile App
• WordPress Mobile by Mobify

Some of the plugins over complicated things by requiring you setup an account first in order to access the license. In addition, create a cname
and mobile url.

One of the reasons people like WordPress is because it’s simple to use.

Wapple Mobile App was one plugin that installed just fine and required minimal additional setup. It allows you to choose the header image, background color, and font. However when I viewed my website on a mobile device it looked like someone else’s. So back to
the drawing board.

At this point, I’m using WPTouch although it doesn’t look the greatest on a blackberry. The good news is if someone is reading your eNewsletter from their phone and clicks a link, your website will look nice on a smartphone. Anyone going directly to your website from their mobile device, well, that’s when you have to forget perfect and go with close enough.

To see how your website looks not just on your smartphone, but any smartphone, check out these mobile phone simulators:

• http://www.testiphone.com/
• www.opera.com/mobile/demo/

If for some reason you’re not sure whether being mobile ready is important for your website, consider this:

• Apple sold 15 million iPads in the first 9 months and the iPad 2 will be out March 11th.
• Verizon started selling iPhones in February has sold 1 million units and this is only the 2nd month.
• Apple sold 100 million iPhones since its first launch in June 2007
• And if that doesn’t do it count how many friends do you know who do not have smartphones.

It’s HUGE, you want your website smartphone ready!