why you should optimize your writeblr for mobile
Towards the end of the work day a couple of weeks ago, I started reading an au from a writeblr I follow. I was only a couple chapters into it when I left to go meet a friend for dinner, but she got held up at her job and I ended up sitting in my car outside Chipotle for like 20 minutes. I was dying to keep reading the au, but I literally could not find it on the tumblr app. The chapters were buried in this writeblr’s posts, and she didn’t have a wip/index page on the mobile site either. I could have scrolled and scrolled forever, but I had no idea how far back they were.
I figured I’d write up a post about this because it’s actually very easy to make these things accessible from the app and mobile site! We’re on our devices all the time, right? Think about all the people who might not be able to easily access your content because you haven’t optimized your tumblr for mobile? It might seem like a pain to do, but I really love reading all of your stories on here, y’all, and I want it to be super easy for other people to do the same!
If you’re a writeblr trying to get your work out there, I think you should have *at the very least* a wip page and some kind of index page.
WIP page: this one is self-explanatory, but wip pages are super important because someone can easily see what you write about instead of trying to piece it all together from your various posts. This also helps people decide if they want to follow you or not! (Here is mine, but you can use your standard theme layout, doesn’t have to be a custom page!)
Index page: I call it an index page, but it’s also kinda like a links/tag page. A table of contents, if you will. Link to: your content, your writing, your aus, your master posts, your character pages, the main tags you use for each of your wips, etc. (Here’s mine for reference!) Linking to all this stuff makes it easier for interested readers to actually find your content.
I know a lot of writeblrs already have these pages on their blogs, it’s just a matter of making sure people can also get to them from their phones. You’ve probably linked to these things in your tumblr theme, but remember that only shows up on desktop.
So! The easiest thing is to add these page links to your mobile site. For your wip and index pages, just turn on the option that says “Show a link to this page.” It looks like this:
These links appear on the mobile site below the bio along with the usual posts, ask, and archive links. Like so:
These links don’t show up on the app, though. These only show up on the mobile site. Idk why tumblr is like this.
An easy fix is to include a link in your bio and call it “mobile nav.” You can link it to either A) Your index page. When someone clicks this link, it will leave the app and open the page on the mobile site. Or B) Copy your index page and publish it in a tumblr post, then link to it in your description. When someone clicks on this, it will stay in the tumblr app. Either way, this gives people easy access to all of your stuff.
Here’s what mine looks like on the app:
This link goes to my index page, which has links to my about page, wip page, and links/tags to all my content. I haven’t shared much of my own writing on here yet since I’m still a relatively new writeblr and I’m still a little shy about sharing my work, but all the things I have shared are definitely linked on that page.
Something to note: check every now and then to make sure the link is still there. Sometimes if you edit your theme or your description, even just the colors on your mobile site, the link will disappear.
There you go! Easy mobile access to all of your stuff for interested readers. :)
vaporwave
germansingergirl
romaincrisis
tangentwithtanner
janainaart
gummygunk
turnnoffyourmind
