How To Create A Mobile Device Version Of Your Blog For Free

In this post we are going to bring your blog to a whole new audience.Have you ever tried to view your blog on an IPhone ? Not a pretty sight and very hard to navigate so by the end of this post you will have a Mobile version of your blog available with it's very own URL address, a cool look, Mobile phone friendly and it's free.

Update - Blogger Have Recently Made Mobile Templates Available.Follow this link for details - Blogger Mobile Templates

According to IDC (Interactive Data Corp) there will be over 1 Billion people using the mobile Internet 2013.We bloggers have to jump on that bandwagon, that's 1 Billion potential readers for your blog.The mobile traffic available from Twitter and Facebook alone is huge.You can even monatize your mobile blog with AdSense and other ad publishers.

The great thing is how easy the mobile version is to set up, it only takes a few steps and you can add a small piece of code to your blogger template that will detect when someone access your blog with a mobile device and send them to the mobile view.

I have set up a mobile version of Spice Up Your Blog so you can see how it works and it genuinely took me less than 3 minutes.You can later go into detail and you could even build a totally custom mobile layout but we will look at first getting your blogs mobile version 'Live' .

Your Blogs Mobile URL

You can buy a custom domain for the mobile version of your blog, i have used the free sub domain and here it is :

www.spiceupyourblog.mobify.me

If you have a mobile device connected to the Internet you can check it out, if not you can still see the page on your computer and get an idea of whats displayed.

I have not had the chance to do much work with the mobile blog yet so you will notice i only have the header and posts included.

How to get your mobile blog online

Step 1. Go To Mobify.me and register for a free account.Once registered ou will arrive on your dashboard.

Step 2. Enter your blogs address in the 'Mobify a website' section and click Mobify

Step 3. You will Now View Your Blog inside a frame, choose the areas of your blog you want to be available on your mobile blog.

You choose what is to be imported onto the mobile version of your blog with a simple 'Select and Click' method - Hover your cursor over the area you want added and you will see red borders appear around the area, press select and it's added.

For larger areas drag the red border until it covers the whole area.It's recommended to use a one column layout, basically your header, posts area and footer.

Read More = Full Posts

On the Home page of this blog i use preview boxes (Click here to see the home page in a new window) that contain a thumbnail image and short summary.I simply dragged the red border over the whole area and all the summary box's.As you see on the mobile Spice Up Your Blog this converted into my full posts being showed.The same will apply to blogs with the 'Read More' function.

Once you have selected the areas you want added click save to get a preview and then 'LAUNCH' - Your mobile version blog is live online.

Directing Mobile Traffic From Your Blog To Your Mobile Device Blog

You now need to add a piece of code to your template that will send mobile visitors to the mobile version of your blog.

In your Mobify dashboard click 'Live' under your your blog title - You can see it in the screen shot above with the text bubble 'Have you launched your site yet'.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see the code needed as shown below :

No in your Blogger dashboard Click 'Layout' -> 'Edit Html'

Find the following code in your blogs html :
(It's at the very top)

Paste the code you copied from mobify Directly Below

Save your template.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

These steps will get you started but when you have the time take a look at the mobify forum for extra help and tips on adding extra css style and page elements to your mobile blog.

What do you think - Cool Yeah ?

Extra Note - When i was checking the numbers of Mobile Internet Users the report i mentioned also stated that more than 2.2 billion people, over one-third of the world's population, will be using the Internet in some form by 2013.That's up from around 1.6 billion today, it's a great time to be a Blogger.Once your mobile blog is live you can click 'Advertising' in the edit page to put an AdSense unit on the page.