Brendan Tully0 Comments
May 12, 2022
Mobile responsive websites are a must as we reach the end of the second decade of the new millennia. It’s no wonder, then, that businesses that thrive online have to locate part of their strategies to being readily available, adaptable and fully responsive for mobile devices as well. And this is not only enormously important for users of that website or business; it also has to do with Google requirements and rankings.
In short, what we’re trying to say is that you shouldn’t put your business under risk by consciously or unconsciously neglecting users that interact with your site primarily through mobile devices.
But, the action of making your site mobile responsive is not something that can be done magically and perfectly in an instant. First, you need to do a little bit of thinking before you set out to purchase the necessary plugin, the one you deem best for your site and your online business enterprise. Maybe you already like some of the elements present in your current mobile version of your site but are not fond of some other ones that you want to change. Or you want a mobile site but don’t want an app – all of this is a sign that there are different types of mobile plugins and all of them offer sometimes more sometimes less similar features and options, as well as a bunch of different interfaces you could use for your mobile site.
For example, you could opt for having only a mobile website (also called a responsive website), where the content of your site won’t change – it will only get adjusted for a flawless viewing on mobile devices.
Another example is the mobile app, aka turning your website into an app. This is very different from the responsive website, and it requires a different program to do this. Generally, turning your website into a mobile app will require mobile features with more power than the regular mobile websites.
A third case is when WordPress mobile plugins are used only to change the mobile menu, for the simple reason that a lot of mobile sites have less than satisfactory looking mobile menus.
Having all this in mind, we think it’s a good time to continue over to a selection of the best WordPress mobile plugins. All of them somehow differ one from the other, and our job is to point out the differences, as well as their strengths and their weaknesses. Your job is to choose the one you think it’s best for your site and your business. All of them, however, have somehow earned their spot on this list as best WordPress mobile plugins.
It’s not for aught that WPtouch has been deemed the most popular WordPress mobile solution eight years in a row now. When it comes to high-quality WordPress mobile plugins, then WPtouch always finds its place among the top ones. This is largely because the whole operational mechanism behind this plugin works quickly and efficiently in turning regular websites into super functional mobile interfaces.
What’s the magic WPtouch here, you might wonder? Well, one of the key ingredients certainly is the speed with which this plugin does all of it. WPtouch will manage to change any kind of WordPress theme you have installed on your site and make it usable and highly functional on any type of mobile device.
WPtouch also considers Google Mobile Test when turning your site into mobile responsive one – and it doesn’t let it go without making damn sure that your site will pass Google’s test with more than satisfactory results. This, in turn, also allows you to leave worries about your SEO rankings aside – all you get to do next is to think about making future improvements, without worrying about whether you’ll be able to maintain their hard-earned rates.
The WPtouch plugin comes in two main versions: a free one and premium ones. The free version allows you to make changes to the mobile site without any technical or programming knowledge. It also renders a very user-friendly, fast loading and overall very good looking mobile responsive site that will look perfectly on any type of small mobile device. You can find the free version here.
The premium versions of this plugin are meant for more serious WordPress users, especially for those who really want to put emphasis on the mobile versions of their site. WPtouch’s premium version offers a greater variety of high-quality mobile themes, as well as certain types of extensions that are designed to incorporate advertisements into your mobile site with more ease and less effort required. What’s more, the premium version also offers you web font controls, caching options, as well as direct and full-on support from the developers of this superb plugin.
The premium version is found on their website – the lowest-priced plan starts at $79 for a whole year and is valid for only one WordPress site. We think that the value of this plugin compared with its price is pretty decent, especially if you’re a more professional WordPress website owner, if you want a multisite support, and also if your business depends largely on your online site and you want to expand it to mobile sites as well, without losing on functionality and aesthetics.
Well, the reasons are many, and we saw some of the above. The first thing is that this plugin works super quickly, even in its free version, when it comes to converting your site into a mobile responsive one. You don’t need to be an IT genius to understand the workings of the WPtouch plugin – through the Settings page in the dashboard of WordPress, you can intuitively navigate your way through the plugin and use it as you please.
We also saw that, given the price-value ratio, the premium versions aren’t as expensive as you would expect them to be coming from such a high-quality plugin such as this one. You’ll get full on developers support, the ability to use it on multiple sites, a variety of wonderful themes you could use, advanced-level typography, as well as useful extensions for advertisements you can place on your mobile site.
WPtouch gives you plenty of tools to tinker around in the mobile menu of your site. It also allows you to customize how you view your site through a particular mobile browser. So, for example, it will give you the chance to choose which of the browsers you want your mobile site to support.
Another great thing about this plugin is how successfully it manages to replace themes that are responsive but rely on heavy image files, as well as CSS and JavaScript. WPtouch is made to be lightweight and super-fast and is bound to satisfy even the pickiest of users.
Jetpack, a WordPress plugin provided by Automattic (uh, yeah, only the guy(s) behind WordPress itself!), is another great mobile plugin. And since it’s coming from the Automattic folks, it also means that it comes with a bunch of already included tools, so you won’t have to be bothered and install additional plugins.
Jetpack will give you a collection of features and tools spanning from social media to security, as well as advertising, marketing, and design. Besides all of these alluring options, Jetpack offers a mobile theme as well, which is also why it’s present on this list!
If you happen to have Jetpack installed on your WordPress website, then you can activate the mobile theme in the Jetpack settings area. The way the theme works is that, once it detects a mobile device, it overrides the current theme.
Jetpack is a very solid WordPress mobile plugin, partly because it has a bunch of settings that allow you to adjust the look of your website and tweak it the way you want it to look on a number of smaller-sized devices.
Another great thing about Jetpack is that it has both a free version and premium ones, and the premium ones are very, very affordable, starting from $39 per year!
Jetpack is one of the most reliable WordPress plugins you can find on the market, working flawlessly for mobile devices as well. It provides a simple mobile theme, but one which allows you to customize it by will and tweak it whichever way you want to suit your enterprise.
Jetpack has a great, highly functional mobile interface and it’s designed to be lightweight and fast so the users of your site can have the best online experience.
Another pro is that the mobile theme is completely free in Jetpack, meaning you won’t have to purchase the premium versions in order to get it. You simply download Jetpack from the WordPress vault and within a matter of minutes and a couple of clicks you’ll have it up and ready, perfectly implemented on your site.
Maybe some users will want a little bit more fancy theme design (some people might find the Jetpack theme basic), but this isn’t necessarily a con. Jetpack provides a very modern and contemporary look to its mobile theme, and once you actually see it on a mobile or tablet browser, you’ll be convinced how good and fitting it actually looks.
What else to say? Jetpack also features lazy loading inside its plugin package, meant for images that are being loaded on the mobile theme. Lazy loading is a perfect option for site optimization and speed because once a visitor checks out your page and scrolls through the mobile version of the site, the images present on it won’t actually load until the visitor reaches them. Thus, lazy loading manages to save you up a lot of potential waste of resources, which, in turn, makes your site much faster than it would be without it.
A lot of people will like the fact that Jetpack’s mobile theme places the sidebars of your page automatically below the main content, which means they’ll still be present on the page without making a mess and clutter around the usual one-column mobile devises format.
You’ll also find how Jetpack supports custom backgrounds and headers, so you never lose control over the individuality and particular feel of your site.
The WordPress Mobile Pack is known for its offer of the so-called ‘progressive web applications’. The progressive web apps are, in fact, apps that are fast and reliable, which include a bunch of desired features of the likes of push notifications and mobile interface smooth animations.
Have in mind, though, that these are not apps in the classical sense, like the ones we’re used to getting from the app stores on our smartphones. Instead, these are conceived as regular mobile websites that load through the browser of the user/visitor. Then why are they called apps, you might ask? Developers call the apps for the simple reason that you are allowed to choose from several different templates that blend in with the user interface of an Android or iPhone app.
Considering all this, if you want a real app to use for your WordPress site, then it might be a good idea to look for another type of mobile plugin. But, the themes are still beautiful, regardless of the type of app. Also, the design of this kind of app is bound to make your site even more unique when compared to other responsive themes present on the mobile plugins market.
Another alluring thing about the WordPress Mobile Pack is that it has a free version that you can find and download here. It offers a fine selection of features (quite a rich one for a free pack!) and it’s quite simple to set up and make your mobile WordPress site upgraded and smoothly running in no time. If you want more stuff than what the basic and free version offers, like, for example, more customization options as well as a big collection of app themes, you can, of course, purchase one of the premium versions, which start from $99 per year.
What the WordPress Mobile pack does is it attempts to mimic a particular app as much as it can, in the best way possible. It does this by subtly making users save the mobile version of your site to their phone’s home screen for future uses.
This mobile pack also includes a default theme that has six different cover pages made to rotate so your mobile site always looks fun, new, alluring, but at the same time also recognizable and itself.
The pack also allows you to make adjustments from the WordPress dashboard to stuff like fonts, colors, and your own logo as well.
Well, first of all, by getting the core plugin, you also get a very fine selection of basic features for which you won’t have to pay a single dollar. If you happen to want additional items, elements, and features – like, for example, monetization options or unlimited push notifications – you can, of course, upgrade to one of the premium versions of this mobile pack.
Now, some people might be skeptical when it comes to this WordPress pack since it’s not providing you with a real app, but a mimic of one, we think there shouldn’t be much room for doubt. The templates included work superbly to render the look and feel of a regular app that we have on our phones. You’ll be able to send push notifications and ask the users of your site to save the link of the mobile version on their smartphones. The themes that you’ll find included will all look more like an app than like a mobile website, guaranteed!
This mobile pack also gives you the option to decide which posts and pages you want to be shown on the mobile site. So, if, for example, you don’t want to show certain features on the mobile site separately because they are already present in headers, footers or elsewhere, you’ll have the option to simply not show them and make your mobile site look more elegant and less cluttered!
This WordPress mobile pack also makes it possible for Google Analytics to integrate with your mobile site, giving you the chance to make distinctions between who is visiting your mobile site and how many of them are visiting the mobile site versus the regular desktop site.
As the name of the plugin itself says, WP Mobile Menu is one of those super-useful plugins for people who want to put special emphasis on fixing up their website’s mobile menu. This is the kind of plugin that will allow you to have both a wonderfully responsive website and a highly functional, modern mobile menu! Menus, in fact, are pretty important for mobile websites, since it’s the primary way visitors navigate the site – that is unless they get to click on the links or call to action buttons. Large icons, menu text, buttons and a smooth slide-in effect are all desirable features in a good looking, functional website mobile menu.
And WP Mobile Menu packs a serious punch when it comes to mobile menus! You can create or customize some very nice menus with this plugin. It also gives you the control for managing background images, Google Fonts, as well as naked headers and much more. If you want, you can also configure the menu with three levels of depth, or just do minor tweaks but still keep your desktop website look.
You can download the basic WP Mobile Menu plugin for free right here and there won’t be any limitations in terms of the number of websites you want the plugin to be used for.
There are also premium versions of this plugin, the cheapest one starting from $4.99 per month, giving you the options of menu item icons and header search, as well as over 2000 icons. The most expensive premium version is the Enterprise one which is $29.99 a month which features a personal success manager, a private Slack channel and special rates for custom development. There is also a Business or WooCommerce plan, going by the rate of $7.99 a month, which is a great option for people with online businesses since it has a menu cart icon, a mobile product filter, a sliding cart and a cart total in the footer.
The WP Mobile Menu plugin is the perfect solution for website owners who are already more or less content with the look and functionality of their site but want to make some improvements in the mobile menu. This way you won’t have to be afraid that you’ll meddle too much with other aspects of your mobile site, and focus solely on fixing up the menu itself.
As we said earlier, you can find the basic plugin for free at the WordPress depository. You are also able to get three premium versions, among them a WooCommerce version as well, where you can add shopping carts.
The core plugin is free, but you have other options like a Professional version or an eCommerce version for adding items like shopping carts or cart total on the mobile version of your site. Some of the premium versions include Google Fonts as well, and more than 2000 icons you can choose from so you have the chance to create a more visual and alluring menu than usual. For example, you can use the so-called ‘naked header’ or a transparent header, but also a menu type that uses an image as a background.
With the free plan, you also get three depth levels, while you get two more with the professional plans. The free plan also offers branding of the menu, enabling you to use your company’s logo as well if you want. And, if you want to omit certain pages or elements from the desktop version of your site into the mobile version, then you can do this very easily with this plugin.
By using these features you’ll get an outstanding mobile interface for your site that will surely set itself apart from a lot of other mobile sites out there.
The Max Mega Menu plugin is a plugin that will help you to convert any type of WordPress menu already in existence into a mega menu. What is a mega menu you might ask? A mega menu is a menu that shows all of the options present on a particular page, even if there are lots of them. This makes the Max Mega Menu one of the best plugins for online magazines or online businesses.
When you set out to use this plugin, you will see how your desktop menu will be converted into a mega menu; then you will also get the chance to choose which posts and pages you want to be shown on the menu, and also customize them at will.
This plugin is truly the best one when it comes to mega menus on mobile versions of WordPress sites. But, you have to keep in mind that you’ll have to have an already established responsive mobile site on which you can build, customize and tinker with your mega menu.
The Max Mega Menu plugin is very easy to use and doesn’t require any particular coding knowledge. You can build and customize your menu with the help of the drag and drop tools, and that’s about it! With this plugin you’ll also be able to include WordPress widgets into the menu and buttons that redirect to other pages that are part of your site; you can even include animated menu styles and flyouts if you want to!
Like most of the plugins included on this list, the Max Mega Menu also has a free version and premium ones. If you’re just starting out or want to cut costs for your mobile site, then the free version will be just enough. If you’re more serious about your site and want extra features to customize the mobile interface of your site even more, you can upgrade the Max Mega Menu for $29 (valid for one site), $49 (valid for 5 sites) and $99 (valid for 99 sites) a year, depending on the premium version. As you can see, the premium versions are quite affordable, giving you extra features like Google Fonts, support for WooCommerce, sticky menu and a lot more.
This is by far the best plugin you can find on the market right now that does a great job when it comes to turning WordPress menus into mega menus. It gives you the chance to control and customize your own mega menus and tailor them to the needs of your own mobile site.
These types of mega menus will also allow you to include WordPress widgets in the area of the menu, which means you’ll be able to put a customized code or an image through the widget option in the menu itself. The free version also allows you to add icons to the menu, so you won’t need the premium ones for that.
The menus can be used on mobile, but also desktop versionsl. There are also options for flyouts, fades, and animations.
The AppPresser is a very nice presence in the WordPress mobile plugins environment because it differs from a lot of plugins that tend to make mobile app versions out of a WordPress desktop site. This plugin actually makes real apps that get linked to your website. This is very different and a much better solution than the RSS feeds a lot of other mobile plugins use because you get to have a real app out of your site, which can also be present in the app stores of Android or iPhone.
However, this plugin is oriented mainly towards website builders and developers with experience. If you’re not one of those people, then maybe you should check out some of the other plugins on our list or ask the AppPresser team for custom-built apps. If you are still interested, though, please continue reading on.
The AppPresser gives you the opportunity to make links to plugins such as BuddyPress and WooCommerce since it has several integrated WordPress plugins in its features package. In the final app product, you can also get features like device camera uploads and push notifications.
The pricing of this app is unsurprisingly higher than other mobile plugins, especially because it’s oriented towards developers and web experts. The basic plan starts from $249 a year, the Business one is $499 a year, and the Business Plus starts from $599 a year
Well, if you are a developer, AppPresser will help you transform a whole WordPress site into a highly functional, good looking mobile app. The app can thus be saved on people’s smartphones, and can also be present in app stores.
It also includes integrations for highly popular and frequently used WordPress plugins, such as LearnDash, BuddyPress, and, of course, WooCommerce.
This app isn’t valuable only because it will make your desktop WordPress site function as a blog feed on mobile devices. It actually works as a very powerful tool that collaborates with other popular plugins and makes your site a very well made smartphone app.
With the AppPresser you’ll also get templates and custom pages and be able to customize at will, without sticking solely to the content already present on your site.
This plugin also includes an app tester through which you can run the app of your site (on your phone), thus testing all you want to test and see how the buttons and the pages work out in the actual app.
The AppPresser also includes an online dashboard through which you can manage all the apps of your clients, and you can operate it through your desktop.
The AppPresser plugin makes great apps for both the iPhone and Android operating systems. In its program, it uses a carefully combined set of features which seamlessly integrate with the current plugins you have on your site. All of this will make your site highly functional, while also looking very good on a mobile app.
With these five WordPress mobile plugins, you will be able to create a superbly functional mobile website out of a regular desktop one. Some people require different WordPress mobile apps for different issues and aspects of their mobile sites they want to work on. That is why in this list we included six different WordPress mobile plugins, all selected from the top of the mobile plugin world.
So, before we conclude with our topic, we’d like to do a small recap of the ones listed here and give you the gist of each of them.
If you want to final a plugin that will satisfy your general needs for a responsive site, then you should definitely consider the WPtouch. It has everything it takes to create a great mobile site.
The Jetpack plugin will give you the chance to create a mobile feed cleaner than everyone else’s out of your WordPress blog.
If you want to have a mobile website that will have the functionality of an app, then definitely consider the WordPress Mobile Pack.
If you want to concentrate more on the mobile menu and leave the other elements of your mobile site undisturbed, then check out WP Mobile Menu.
If you want a plugin that will help you make a real mobile app from your desktop WordPress page or an RSS blog feed mobile page, then definitely go with the AppPresser.
And, finally, last but not least, if you need to make mega menus, both for the desktop and mobile version of your site, and want to leave other aspects of the site as they are, then get the Max Mega Menu plugin.
Of course, this list is not exhaustive when it comes to the best WordPress mobile plugins out there, but we tried to pick the best of the best and give you a very refined selection of them. We sincerely hope that we did our job well and that you won’t have much trouble with finding the perfect one for your WordPress site!
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