Now more than ever, keeping up with the competition is crucial. More websites use WordPress than any other content management system in the world – and for good reason. Its sheer flexibility and universal availability make it a very appealing solution for those in need of quick, responsive web design.

While deploying a WordPress website is easy enough, optimizing it for all audiences can present more nuanced challenges. With mobile users now encompassing a majority of web traffic via search engines and social media, being ready for these audiences is pivotal to your long-term strategy.

As such, we’ll be examining some WordPress plugins that can make accommodating mobile audiences that much easier.

JetPack

Page speed is an incredibly important aspect of mobile-friendliness. Large pages with immense file sizes that take eons to load can significantly reduce the percentage of mobile users who stick around and interact with your website. Optimizing for these factors is essential. Since too many plugins themselves can cause speed issues, utilizing one that contains as many functions as possible is recommended.

JetPack is a very useful WordPress plugin that helps balance everything from website security to analytics. It also contains a handful of speed-boosting features in the package, such as CDN imaging that minimizes loading times for mobile users and lazy loading (which helps do the same; only loading images whenever they are necessary).

JetPack is a free plugin and definitely worth considering if improving mobile experience is a goal.

Smush

Being sure that your files and resolutions are optimal for mobile audiences is key to user experience and search engine optimization alike. Thankfully, Smush makes it possible to accomplish a wide variety of tasks in this regard. Whenever people are pinging your website, Smush monitors their interactions and lets you know about any potential files that may be generating excessive loading times. Additionally, it gives users the ability to preset specified image widths, ensuring mobile users aren’t having to scroll left and right to see your content.

Smush comes in free and premium options, depending on which set of utilities you wish to use. However, the mobile-friendly options mentioned above can be found in the free version.

WPTouch

Mobile responsive design is a huge factor in appealing to mobile audiences. Without it, you’re not very likely to rank prominently in search results – and traffic coming from anywhere else is likely to be less meaningful as many simply leave your website in search of alternatives that don’t look goofy on their screens.

Enter WPTouch: a simple WordPress plugin that makes sure your website fits the screen and looks decent on any mobile device. Whenever someone begins pinging your website, WPTouch assesses their browser, device and resolution, and serves up a compatible option to them (whether they’re using a mobile phone or tablet).

In just a few minutes, you can configure one or more formats for use on mobile devices and ensure people are seeing your website as intended.

Being accommodating to mobile users is a must these days, so don’t make the same mistakes countless people continue to make to this day. These three plugins are just the tip of the iceberg of what WordPress can do with regard to improving mobile experience, so give them a try and see how you like them!