Tools to Help with Mobile Optimization
With more than 55 million users relying on their mobile phones to browse the Internet1, optimizing your website for mobile users has gradually become an important issue for site and blog owners. However, when the benefits of having a mobile-compatible site are less than the initial costs of making a new version, it is not worth it to optimize. Thankfully, there are a couple of tools—some free, others paid—that will suffice for a less complicated site.
Mofuse
Mofuse offers a lot of customization, has no initial fee and relatively easy to use. The application has two options for its customers: either building their own website or having it built for them. For customers’ own builds, the monthly subscription plans are for $7.95, $39 and $89, respectively, for JumpStart, Basic and Small Business plans, which are limited by the number of monthly visitors. Users can utilize elements to create their page, or they can have professional designers do it for Starter ($650) and Advanced ($1200) prices. For both packages, the company offers comprehensive analytics and SEO (take this with a grain of salt), for bigger organizations mobile commerce as well.
WireNode
WireNode offers quite a lot of functionality and its basic package is free. Its features include Google Maps, Polls and Forms, RSS mobilization and Mobile Widgets. The free package is ad-powered and does not allow for unique domains. Judging by its range of customers, like O2, Nokia, Nivea, Reebok, Ford, etc., the services are of high quality. Its pricing may be geared towards a more European audience, although they do remain competitive in any environment: one website with no restrictions for $6.68 or 3 for $13.50. The webpage editor is self-explanatory and resembles the interface of a text editor.
Winksite
Winksite is a truly free service that does not require ads to be placed on the mobile site, nor does it restrict the site usage. It is available for blogs, making it extremely easy for bloggers to reach new audiences. The interface simply requires the URL of the blog, and it creates a mobile blog site from it. Its RSS reader and aggregator cleanly combines lists of titles, and turns blog content into readable mobile pages. Naturally, the site will not offer you a unique domain so this option is better for less formal websites.
Zinado0
Zinadoo is a more powerful option to develop bigger mobile webpages with unlimited content on them. The service is available in these price ranges: 1) with Zinadoo ads is 75 euros; 2) without Zinadoo ads is 100 euros; and 3) with own ads is 130 euros. Although the service is a tad expensive, its customization and support services can be extremely useful to mid-tier businesses. It further justifies the high prices with a specialized Zinadoo marketing consultant for mobile campaigns.
MobiSiteGalore
Finalist at the Mobile Premier Awards 2010, MobiSiteGalore is a cost effective, quick-to-implement and options-packed software, available in seven languages such as Spanish, Dutch, English, Greek, German, Italian, and French. The product pricing starts at $49 per year and goes up to $225 for an unlimited number of pages. However, this price includes 24/7 support, as well as a plethora of service such as click-to-call, Google integration, e-commerce solutions, advertising integration and easy to change designs.
Sometimes websites do not need to be heavily optimized to run on mobile phones, more so when they primarily have static content and text information. mobiReady is a free comparison and evaluation service that can help you determine whether you need to invest in mobile optimization or if your website is mobile-compatible as it is. It gives detailed .mobi and W3C mobileOK compliance results.
