Quick Hacks to Make Your Content Mobile Friendly
January 3, 2008
If you (or your management) are not willing to create a mobile-friendly Website for your customers, here are some hacks to mobilize your content quickly. (Caution: I said “hacks” because you really should invest time to do it correctly.)
- Create a URL (e.g. m.yourdomain.com) that redirects through a compressor like Google Mobilizer or Mowser.
- If your site is built with a content management system such as WordPress, you can install plug-ins like WordPress PDA (my favorite) and WordPress Mobile Edition which strip out all the formatting and leave a clean, navigable text format.
- Use a paid service such as Usablenet mobile to implement a conversion solution for you that does not require your programming resources.
Unfortunately, the first two don’t give you a good method to measure visitor traffic. But if you have a Web analytics tool in place that gives you browser, operating system and screen size information, you might be able to glean some useful data to make a business case for creating a dedicated mobile site.
Honestly, it’s better to put your energy towards executing correctly. But if you don’t have the manpower, time or management support, consider a shortcut so you have a presence before your competition gets a leg up on you.
Hope you find this useful. Please add your thoughts.
-Roland
Hey Roland, thanks for the mention! We also have a Mowser Wordpress Plugin that both redirects the user to the Mowser mobile version of a page if they seem to be on a mobile device and adds headers to the HTML for the standard version to direct mobile search traffic to the mobile version:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mowser-wordpress-mobile/
Good point about the analytics. One of the things we do at Mowser is allow you to use AdMob advertising on the mobile version of your pages. Then you can use the AdMob site stats to get info about your traffic. It’s not a fantastic solution for more advanced users, but for a publisher who wants an easy way to get online and collect some numbers we think it works well.
- Mike
Hi Mike, Thanks for the extra information. Mowser is a favorite of mine, but I didn’t realize there was a WordPress plug-in. I’ll definitely check that out.
Excellent point about mobile advertising units being another method of collecting some data. Every little bit helps.
-Roland
Hi Roland,
Yep I totally agree with you that it’s crazy companies are running mobile websites without any idea about mobile browser traffic.
One of the real issues with mobile web is up until now people have had issues accurately tracking even basics like traffic and volume.
Without tooting my own horn too much I suggest if people want to gather real analytics check out Amethon’s Mobile Analytics application.
http://www.Amethon.com
http://www.amethon.com/Content_Common/pg-Mobile...
Rather than relying on logfile analysis, embedded artifacts or client-side java scripts, Mobile Analytics captures the underlying TCP/IP traffic allowing analysis of HTTP, WAP and other relevant protocols. Statistics are then generated and presented via a comprehensive web-based reporting tool.
The types of statistics provided includes:
Bandwidth (total, average per visit, total per file type)
Hits (average per visit, number of downloads, page view breakdown)
Visits (entry page, average duration, click paths, referring search engine)
Visitors (browser type, user agent, operating system)
Handsets (make, model, screen resolution)
Mobile Operator (country of origin, operator name)
Geo Location (country of origin, RDNS lookup)
This is only applicable if you run your own server and have access (and profitability) to host a dedicated Amethon server physically adjacent to your mobile webserver so may not be for everyone.
But check out the site for more info or if you are in the USA feel free to give me a call in the New York office.
Cheers,
Dean Collins