Some look like mini versions of the full site, but some completely break, especially older websites and Flash (on iThings). You may think people aren’t looking at your site on mobile devices but that’s absolutely wrong. Statistics show that smartphones are outnumbering plain cell phones by huge quantities now. Don’t you think ‘how quaint’ when someone pulls out a regular cell phone?

People use their mobiles to conveniently look things up as soon as it occurs to them, including your site, no matter what your business. Where are they located again? What was that guy’s name?

Besides the opportunity to leverage mobile specific content, start with something that simply works. Mini is better than broken, but can still be very hard to read.

How Can You Get Mobile Friendly Without Redoing the Whole Site?

If there are no other factors motivating you to redo your website, rebuilding for the sake of mobile is not likely justifiable.

The quickest and cheapest way is to get a mobile friendly platform (like WordPress) and either purchase a template that looks like your site or skin one to suit your site’s look and feel. The problem is, if you update regularly you’ll end up doing it in two places.

I’ve seen sites with partial content on their mobile version and a link to the full site. That drives me nuts and won’t work if your full site is broken on mobile. If you do only put some information, imagine what people are most likely to want on the platform (ie: probably not read a case study).

Good News For WordPress Websites

If your site is already on WordPress, there’s a handy widget that makes creating a mobile version much easier. Just have your designer tweak (ie: shrink, minimize) graphics for the medium.

When You Are Ready…

When other motivating factors tell you it’s time for a new site, be sure to take mobile into account. Be sure to build on a robust platform that makes mobile easier and pulls information for both from one database, so you only have to update in one place. Think about design in small spaces and people’s behaviours (and inherent opportunities) when browsing mobile.