Last week, I talked about how I’ve been experimenting with monetizing mobile traffic using the WPTouch mobile theme and AdSense.
Another great feature of WPTouch is that it allows you to post metrics code into the the ads, so you get a true picture of how many people are viewing your site not only on the normal theme, but also on the mobile one.
I’ve been using WPTouch for a number of months now, but I’d never added Google Analytics code to it. As a result I was undercounting visitors to my site.
A few days back, I added Google Analytics code to my WPTouch theme, and was amazed to see just how many of our viewers are viewing the site using that theme. Following is a chart of mobile device viewers accessing Digital Photography School. Up until I added the Analytics code, it was only counting mobile device users who were using the normal dPS theme—it wasn’t counting those using WPTouch.
Since I added the code, the stats skyrocketed from an average of 700 a day to around 4000 a day! That means about 5% of the blog’s readers now view it on mobile devices.
Again, this isn’t an increase in actual traffic: it’s just a more accurate count. But it’s worth noting that if you are using a mobile version of your site, you should pick a theme that you can measure.
