Obviously, it's not a matter of if, but when, mobile websites will become popular. Content and service providers just need to find the perfect formula needed to attract enough visitors for advertisers to start taking notice.

Part of this consideration is a site's suitability for mobile platforms. Will it fit in the small screens of smartphones and PDAs? Will the site require lots of downloading, maxing out visitors' data plans?

A great way to find out the answers is to visit ready.mobi. This service asks you to enter a URL, then analyzes the provided site for mobile suitability. Results range from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent), and include tips on how to make your site more ready for mobile visitors. It's just part of .mobi's efforts to get more people on the mobile web.

For now, the best approach to make a site ready for the mobile web is to minimally style it. No visual bells and whistles, just the text and pictures. But surely, some intrepid designer will come up with a way to maximize the limitations of the platform, or smartphones and PDAs themselves may become better at handling websites. Whatever the case, ready.mobi is a good tool for web designers to check if their creations will load anywhere, anytime.