WordPress is a popular CMS that is lauded for its exquisite features, including easy accessibility, manageability, and intuitive interface, to name a few. It can support any business niche, so you can efficiently boost your business with a prolific online presence. Moreover, this open source platform comes jam-packed with amazing support, captivating themes and resourceful plugins.
Today, a quarter of the entire web is WordPress powered, and its active community persistently endeavors to ensure the most advanced and latest features of WordPress. Also the advent and rapid advancements in smart mobile devices have created a great buzz across the globe. As a result, it can be observed that the major part of the web traffic originates from mobile devices, instead of desktops; and this trend is only expected to continue. This clearly indicates the need of optimizing your website for mobile visitors.
If you are still not convinced, keep reading. Now, Google also favors mobile-friendly websites, while indexing them in search results. I hope you won’t like to observe a drop in your search ranking, it will heavily impact your business. Thus, it will be wise to make your website mobile optimized so that you can rivet your gigantic mobile audience.
For the folks who are interested in making their WP website run smoothly over the myriads of mobile devices as well as desktops, responsive web design makes a much sought after choice. There are several ways that can help you make your WP site responsive. To help you accomplish the task with a flair, this article will reveal the commendable methods and tips to build a responsive WordPress website.
Let’s explore them one by one.
1. Make Use Of A Suitable Responsive Theme
Fortunately, the WordPress repository is loaded with plenty of responsive themes, you can choose the one that best suits your website and create a ravishing look and feel for both mobile and desktop users. While there is a slew of overwhelming options available around, it is easy to get confused. Here are some commendable responsive themes for your consideration.
- Responsive Theme – It is a flexible theme featuring a fluid grid system that can adapt your website to any mobile device or desktop. It comes complete with 11 widget areas, 6 template layouts, 9 page templates, and a lot more. The theme also supports a list of useful plugins that further elevate its credibility.
- BizWay – The innovative and elegant design of BizWay is sure to drive conversions and sales. This responsive theme is designed to run seamlessly on a device.
2. You May Choose To Install An Appropriate Plugin
Like WP themes, there are several WP plugins that are popular for providing a valuable responsive solution. You can install a suitable plugin and enhance your website performance to captivate your mobile viewers. Whether you want to optimize the loading speed for mobiles, or showcase a different theme for mobile and desktop visitors, there are plugins for almost everything. For instance, WP Mobile Detector, WPTouch, JetPack, and so forth.
3. By using Media Queries
If you are from a technical background, you may choose to optimize your website for mobiles by implementing media queries. It involves several steps, which are elucidated below.
- Declaring Media Queries – If you have installed any responsive WP theme, you can access the CSS file that can be used to define a mobile version and desktop version. However, the default CSS will vary on the basis of the screen size, make it certain that it supports a standard screen size. For this, simply set the maximum width to 320 pixels (or you may change it to 780 pixels or 1024 pixel screen sizes).
@media screen and (max-width: 320px)
- Creating Fluid Images – A common issue that can be often observed in many websites is that while boasting a responsive layout, there images are not mobile optimized. You can ensure a surefire performance of your site on mobiles by creating fluid images in your website. To accomplish this, you just need to assign relative units to the images of your site, instead of using the absolute pixel dimensions. And, for this, it is essential to set the maximum width of your image to 100 percent; you can implement the below mentioned line of code for this.
<img style=”max-width: 100%; height: auto;” src=”example_img.jpg” alt=”An example image.” />
- Adjusting The Typography – It is essential to make your website content adapt the targeted device’s screen in an optimal fashion. Content includes text and other media files. In order to deliver a brilliant UX, it is vital to make your text size adjust itself on the basis of the targeted screen size. This can be achieved by implementing the following lines of code.
body {
font-size: 80%;
line-height: 1.5em;
}
4. Ensure A Simple Navigation – Navigation can ruin or improve the look and feel of a website. Thus, it is recommended to keep the key factors in mind for designing an optimal navigation. Take care of the UI elements to ensure whether a user can easily fetch a requisite info with ease or not.
Final Thought
Mobile-friendly websites are imperative to secure a sustainable success, and responsive website can deliver a superlative performance. Thoroughly review the key points mentioned above and proficiently optimize your site for mobiles as well as desktop.