Can anyone tell me the process required to make a web site mobile friendly?

Thanks

@dongrandy

Hi Don

Sites that are mobile friendly

1. use @media queries within their css files – basically, this means you can change stylesheets based on for instance the width and height of the viewport.
2. are lightweight – as few as possible http requests In case you are unfamiliar with this term;  this would be any files needed for the page to render and function and would include things like javascript, css, and image files. 
3. There is some extra code that goes in the head of the page document, but I’m guessing that’s more technical than you need to know about.

Not all phones interpret the @media queries so the layout would not present well for them.

There are a couple of ways you can accommodate mobile users; you can create a responsive site that collapses as the browser window gets smaller, like my site juleswebb.com, or you can simply redirect mobile users to a mobile version of your website. The latter uses the same content, but a separate design and templates will need to be created. A good example of this is Bare Escentuals makup. For a better understanding visit both their normal website and their mobile website. Be sure to visit each site on both your mobile device and your computer.

Did that answer your question?

@dongrandy, I’m not sure to what degree you might find them helpful, but Google has presented a few webinars, some of which cover various aspects of mobile ready sites.  Here’s the list.  (The “GoMo: Mobilize your Site and Maximize your Advertising” was just last week and now added to the recorded section.)

@dongrandy This is something most of us should outsource…

I build sites using Wordpress and there are a number of mobile responsive themes now available. I especially like what Studiopress is doing with their mobile responsive themes.

Unlike a separate mobile template, a mobile responsive design will adjust to any screen size. I just rebuilt my site http://www.jalcommunications.com using a Studiopress mobile responsive theme.

Unfortunately, I made some serious modifications to the theme so I’m still working out the mobile rosponsive kinks on the home page Other than an iPhone, the home page looks pretty good though (ie iPad). However, the rest of the site including the blog do translate well to the iPhone. Ultimately, I’m more worried about the inner content on mobile than the main home page so for now it works.

To see a mobile responsive design in action, pull up a mobile responsive site (like mine above) in your browser and adjust the size of the window. As you adjust the size, you will see the content on the page adjust to the size of the window. You can really see it on my blog page as the sidebar jumps below the content.

There are a number of good WP mobile plugins out there. They can provide a quick and easy solution.

Please stay away from Joomla. It sucks.  I recommend wordpress, or weebly for now.

@dongrandy Google’s own and simple to do site mobilizer may help you lot: http://code.google.com/p/phpmobilizer/

I think the phpmobilizer, actually does not make sense.

RE: GOMO
This is a handy tool. Thanks!

@boxcarmarketing good point!

My apologies for the lousy representation on SocialMediaExaminer (sigh).