Mobile phones view websites differently, a fact that Google is now accounting for. Image: Flickr / joshuakaufman / CC-BY-SA
Mobile phones now account for a huge amount of traffic on the web. Though Google and other search engines have been serving up different web results for mobile phones for a long while, Google has officially announced that the Googlebot Mobile crawls with a smartphone user agent.
Knowing what mobile agents look for
Mobile phones look for something different than computers and desktop browsers. Websites that have mobile versions tend to be ranked more highly no matter what for mobile phones, because those websites serve up what is required of that mobile browser. Mobile agents look for mobile-friendly websites of some kind. These could be redirects to a mobile site or a flexible HTML5 site.
Every mobile phone is different
There are hundreds of different kinds of mobile phone browsers. You do not need to create a different site for every type of browser. Instead, you should create a mobile site that is easily read by as many different types of mobile browsers as possible. If you find that your website is visited particularly often by one type of mobile operating system, it could be worth it to create a mobile site for that specific type of browser. It will always be better to create a mobile site of some kind that functions, instead of having no mobile site at all.
You still need discoverable content
While mobile best practices are still under development, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First of all, treat mobile browsers as equal to other types of browsers. Secondarily, you should always make sure your mobile content is included in your site map. Finally, you should have mobile content that can be easily read and easily navigated using a mobile phone.
Mobile made easy
If you are running a website on WordPress, you can create a mobile version of your website easily. There are a multitude of plugins that make WordPress installations mobile-friendly, including Wapple Architect, WP Touch and WordPress Mobile Pack. No matter what plugin you choose, you should always look at your website using a mobile phone emulator to test your website. If you have a magazine-style theme that displays a specially programmed homepage, you may need to program new homepage content.
After you have a mobile website up and running, be sure to check for compatibility with other plugins. Things like WordPress E-Commerce often are not programmed to work with mobile sites, so go through your site with a fine-toothed comb to ensure that all your plugins are displaying or operating correctly.