It’s a fact of life these days: If your Website isn’t equipped for mobile users, you’re missing out on a big chunk of traffic.
Separate subdomains have become an increasingly popular way to deal with this development. Instead of all visitors reaching your site through your primary domain, you can automatically redirect mobile device users to a version of your site specifically designed for mobile traffic. Typically, this looks like mobile.your-domain.com or m.your-domain.com.
But for many WordPress users, mobile subdomains can be cumbersome. Especially when you pit them against their deservedly popular alternative – the mobile theme.
In social media, mobile subdomains could spell trouble.
If you’re using a mobile subdomain, you run the risk of having visitors from laptop and desktop computers coming across the mobile version of your site by mistake.
Let’s say someone reads your content on his or her phone and decides to share it on Facebook. When this person’s friends click on the link, they may get sent to your your mobile subdomain – the one the person sharing the content read on his or her phone. If those people are on desktop computers, this could be a real problem.
All of the content would be condensed into a tiny column. None of your sidebars would be visible, and your navigational links may be hidden as well. After all, this is the mobile version of your Website. It’s supposed to be for little screens.
With a mobile WordPress theme, this issue disappears. When a mobile user is detected, your site automatically serves a mobile-friendly version of any existing page. There’s no separate subdomain to worry about, and your visitors will always experience the most optimal display of your site – no matter what platform they’re using.
Anyone can share your content, and you won’t have to worry whether desktop users are seeing the mobile version.
And don’t forget search engines.
Whenever someone links to your content, it improves your search engine ranking.
But if some people are linking to your mobile subdomain and others are linking to your primary domain, you’re not getting all of the ranking power your content deserves.
Instead of getting 20 links to a single page, you might get 10 links to the mobile page and 10 links to the primary page. This will dilute your ranking potential and ultimately prevent you from enjoying as much traffic as you otherwise would.
A whole other subdomain? Who can maintain that?
Unless you have a big staff, maintaining the same content for different areas of your site will be extremely laborious.
By installing a mobile WordPress theme, you can publish content the way you always have – one time – and never worry whether mobile visitors are seeing the “right” version. You won’t have to spend any extra time publishing in a different subdomain. After all, there won’t even be a different subdomain to publish in.
So if you’ve been wondering what to do with all that mobile traffic, perform a little “WordPress research” and check out some mobile themes (WPTouch is popular). They’re easy to install, and you’ll rest easier knowing your site is simple for any visitor to read.
13 Comments
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alanc230
December 15, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Thanks for the discussion of the mobile issue. You raise some points I hadn’t thought of before.
Shanon
December 15, 2011 at 4:55 pm
I really like platforms like Thesis and Genesis. There are many great free and premium WordPress theme. I really can’t point to just a single best theme but I think that the best themes can be found on Genesis website, Woo themes and Theme forrest.
Christina
December 16, 2011 at 5:44 am
Make sense to me why it is important not to create a subdomain where people can actually access your site through their mobile phones. Like what you’ve said, it is still best for a blog owner to choose a mobile theme rather than to create a subdomain that could actually divide the site’s visitors.
Nishadha
December 16, 2011 at 5:51 am
A very good point, unless your doing something specific for your mobile users I guess a theme would be enough.
Danny
December 16, 2011 at 7:23 am
Great point about the social media sharing. That is very common.
I think my theme already has a mobile version because it works perfect on my phone.
Tracyann0312
December 16, 2011 at 9:23 am
Nice point of view. But is there anything you can do for mobile users to choose the right theme for them? Mobile has good benefits, but sometimes it would not be enough.
TA
December 16, 2011 at 10:50 am
Yeah, mobile theme is important these days. That is why some popular WordPress theme sites like Theme-Junkie have started focusing on it.
nordicbet
December 17, 2011 at 11:33 am
Word press is nice and its uses are really cool if we a mobile theme according to it then its more easy and fun use with it our cell phones thanks man nice post i like it …. 🙂
bilal
December 27, 2011 at 11:33 am
great point of view to increase traffic and the choice of right version its really amazing to read this post , thanks
Stan
January 17, 2012 at 10:17 am
It is important for us to make our sites visible even for mobile phones. So getting mobile theme can really be the best solution in catering service to those mobile users. You’re right it can be very tedious to create and to maintain same content for normal site and a mobile one so why not find other way to solve this problem.
Mr.Bhavesh
February 14, 2012 at 5:03 pm
It is not necessacery that WordPress user need a mobile theme or subdomain.Amit Bhawani’s blog has no mobile theme or no any sub domain for mobile site,still it has Premium adsense account and highest traffic achieving blog from India.
Content is the King,Not theme or anything else!!
Bishwajeet
March 10, 2012 at 10:07 pm
There are free plugins in wordpress which does the work pretty fine.
Alan64
April 6, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Good point about traffic splitting. But, it would be much more convenient to have a single responsive theme instead of having one theme for desktops and another for mobiles. Not to mention, responsive design becomes more and more popular.