Do you know what your publishing blog, bookselling site or author page looks like on mobile devices? Millions of readers are reading content on mobile devices, and you could be unwittingly be transmitting terrible content.
Over the weekend, an alert reader told this GalleyCat editor that his personal site looked terrible in a mobile browser. Despite blogging for a living, we had no idea that our images and text got completely jumbled on a smartphone. After a few frantic hours of work, we fixed our blog so it can be read across a variety of mobile devices.
Below, we’ve collected five free ways you can make your author page more mobile-friendly…
1. Call your friends. Have them look up your page on different devices. Be sure to test your site on everything from iPads to Android smartphones to Barnes & Noble Nook Color.
2. Use the free W3C mobile checkup page to test your site’s level of “mobile-friendliness.” Follow the recommendations they give you for optimizing your author page.
3. If you have a Movable Type blog, explore your mobile plug-in options.
4. If you have a WordPress blog, explore your mobile plug-in options.
5. If you only use Tumblr or Twitter, be sure to look up your site on mobile devices as well. Your page will appear differently on these devices, make sure it looks the way you intended.
If you want more advice, try the Publishing App Expo, our December 7-8 conference showing writers and publishers how to share their stories on tablets and other mobile devices.