Wordpress

The many different formatting requirements of mobile browsers make it tough for someone new to mobile marketing to get started. In fact, optimizing your landing pages for mobile traffic is probably the number one trickiest task once you want to move beyond direct-linking mobile offers. It’s possible to limit some of this workload by focusing on just a few device types, but that nearly always means leaving money on the table. You can spend hours researching the various devices and their browsers, their resolutions and capabilities, but this is a very active area of technology. Keeping your finger on the pulse of the shifting flavors of formatting is tough and time-consuming. You can use tools like BeastMobi if you are a Mobile Monopoly member to help you build pages quickly and for short-term landers, that may be the best way to go. Another option is to use Adobe’s line of products to create flash media based sites using Device Central, but Flash is not supported by all devices; in particular, iPhones don’t like Flash.

WordPress Mobile Pack

For longer-term sites and to mobile-ize existing sites, there is a better approach though. Just use WordPress! Using the free WordPress Mobile Pack plug-in and perhaps some specialty themes you can set up your WordPress-based site so that desktop browsers see a full-sized theme and mobile visitors have access to the same posts, images, and other content using a different, custom theme. The plug-in includes a mobile ‘switcher’ that detects the type of device the visitor is using and serves up the content using the appropriate format. You can set a link to let users override this  and view the site using the other theme.

The Mobile Pack also pays attention to possible device-format conflicts and blocks content, such as video or flash files that a device can’t handle. Possibly the best feature, as I mentioned above, is that you can add the plug-in to an existing WordPress site to adapt it retroactively for mobile use.

Issues of Note

The plug-in is pretty fantastic, but it is not a magic wand. If a landing page relies on the visitor being able to view a video, bit of Flash media, or large background image you may still have some work ahead to optimize the site for your specific purposes. While the plug-in ships with several optional mobile themes, you must still configure these to your liking, or find a different mobile-optimized theme that meets your needs.

There are lots of different systems available to build and manage websites, but WordPress is head-and-shoulders above the field. The best feature  of the platform is based on it’s popularity. Because of WordPress’ free, open-source nature, it has been widely adopted and therefore you can normally be sure that any problem you run into with the software has already been encountered and solved (often in several different ways). If you can’t find a feature you want, chances are, there is a plugin that precisely fits your need.

I have often heard it said that WordPress is only good for blogs and “serious” websites always use something else. Sometimes the reasoning behind the argument  is based on how WordPress “can’t handle much traffic.” I find it interesting, if this is the case, that sites such as the New York Times and the entire Cheezburger network run successfully on the system. I think this false notion has developed because free / open-source software can work very well, but free / cheap web hosting services are normally pretty limited.

New York Times error page reveals WordPress sub-structure

Just about every theme that is available for WordPress has at least one spot for ads. Some even have elaborate adspace managers built right into the dashboard. Even so, it seems like every time I pick a spot to place a banner, that’s the one area that’s not set up for it. I have to go in and poke with the theme code to make sure it shows correctly and doesn’t get in the way of other theme functions. And that’s before I even try to add other features like ad rotation (for multiple offers or for split-testing).

Fortunately, there is a free plugin from MaxBlogPress that addresses these issues and more!

These are the same guys, working in a secret lair in Nepal, who developed the only paid plugin I recommend for every WordPress installation: Ninja Affiliate! Max Banner Ads is just as crafty as the Ninja plugin, but it is sort of free. It is “review ware”, so you agree to create a review of the product in order to use it.

Despite being ‘free’ the tool is feature-rich. It includes a tracking module and an ad rotation control so you can alternate banners and still tell which one works the best.

As long as you are checking the Banner Ads plugin out, make sure to grab (and use!) their Ping Optimizer plugin. This tool not only helps keep you up-to-date by managing WordPress’ ping function, it also lets you suspend pinging so you don’t accidentally get blocked for spamming the ping services!