Hey everyone!

Today marks a long-awaited and incredibly important milestone in our history at Wealthy Affiliate. I am really excited to announce that Wealthy Affiliate is now Mobile Ready and mobile device users will get to experience our brand new responsive design!

Mobile Responsive Design, Why it's so Important.

First off...Responsive design means that the site will work beautifully on a device like a mobile phone or tablet, I wanted to explain that before we move on because it's something that everyone should be aware of.

Google recently announced that their default web crawler is the Google Mobile Bot. This means that Google is experiencing a very high percentage of mobile device usage. It also means that a lot of traffic and rankings come through the mobile versions of Google.

The better equipped your website is to handle mobile devices, the better the overall search presence will be. This is why all websites built at Wealthy Affiliate on the WordPress platform come equipped with responsive designs.

Mobile Usability Prior to the Update

Mobile Usability Now

Our WealthyAffiliate.com website has long been Mobile ready, but the WA members area historically has been designed for DESKTOP users. This doesn't mean that the WA members area has not worked on Mobile Devices, it's means that we haven't had a dedicated design for mobile devices...until today!

With this update we expect that our already GREAT rankings in Google, Yahoo, and Bing will get a boost in traffic and rankings. Your Blog posts, Questions, and interactions at WA may rank a lot better - thus giving your activity a chance to earn you referrals :)

Much of WA is Mobile Ready...but Not All Yet.

As of today, about half of WA is Mobile responsive ready. There are literally hundreds of pages within WA which required redesign, and rather than wait for them all to be done at once, we wanted to release the most highly used areas of WA first.

You'll notice that your experience on a mobile device will switch between desktop and mobile (explained below). In the "mobile" design world it's been common to have a mobile experience that does not offer 100% of functionality when compared to that of the desktop version. This IS NOT something we've ever been interested in. We want the mobile experience to be the same high quality, and full experience that is available to desktop devices. For this reason some areas in WA are yet to be designed for mobile devices, and this is a current focus.

Available Mobile Responsive Areas include:

• Main & Top Menu
• Training Courses & Lessons
• Blogs
• Questions
• Member Profiles
• Activity Dashboard
• Live Events Menu
• Account Settings
• Jaaxy Platform within WA
• Blog Editor
• Comment Areas

Future Responsive Areas:

• Task Manager
• SiteManager
• SiteDomains
• Website Build
• Live Events
• Private Messages
• SiteContent
• SiteComments
• SiteFeedback
• Affiliate Area
• Notifications
• Training Builder

Many of the "Future Responsive" areas have been left out on purpose because we are in the works of significant updates to them, we'll release mobile ready design at the same time we update those areas :)

Switching between Mobile and Desktop.

As you browse the WA members area on a mobile device, you'll notice the User Interface switch between a responsive design to the design you're used to already (desktop).

If you need to get back to the mobile menu, you can always just visit the "dashboard" as it's 100% mobile ready.

If switching back and forth is not something you like, then you can turn OFF the mobile responsive mode from your account settings.

We've found that readability, engagement, and overall usability at WA is MUCH improved in the responsive mode on mobile devices. It's easier to comment, it's easier to learn, it's easier to navigate, it's easier to search, it's simply EASIER when using a mobile device!

------------

The initial roll out of our Mobile user experience for the WA members areas has been something we've been working on full-time in the background for a very long time (seems like forever). All new development of platforms include mobile designs and we cannot wait to release more in the coming weeks and months.

In my last post I alluded to having many updates coming to WA this fall, and we're just getting started with them all...you're going to hear from me quite a bit with every significant release :)

I'll leave you with a few questions.

Do you use WA on a Mobile Device? If not, will you now that we're Mobile Ready?

Leave your answers below.