There’s a lot of talk about mobile these days, especially about optimizing your site for mobile usage (or creating a native app).As Subscription Site Central has cautioned before, you should examine your analytics before making any decision to optimize your site for mobile viewing.But even if you’ve decided that your site or publication doesn’t need a mobile presence, you should probably be optimizing your emails for mobile viewing.That’s because more and more Americans are viewing emails on their mobile devices. In fact, one A/B test on WhichTestWon.com (our sister site) showed that more users will click on preheader text promoting a “mobile version” versus an “online version.”However, that link — and other preheader links to “mobile versions” — often link to plain text emails. Many email marketers think this is savvy since it gets rid of the images that aren’t as easily viewed on mobile devices.

But Justin Jordan, mobile email guru from Litmus and guest speaker on this week’s Webinar at Subscription Site Insider, disagrees.She explained to Insider members that plain text emails are actually incredibly mobile-unfriendly. That’s because the text links are not as click-able when a visitor is using his finger and not a mouse (see the example below). So in effect, you’re wasting your customer’s time by getting him to click on an email that’s more difficult to read and doesn’t get him the information he wants in a convenient format.

Instead, Jordan offered three alternatives to plain text emails, including mobile-aware emails, fluid layouts, and responsive design.To learn which alternative may be right for your emails, check out the four-part video series on Best Practices in Mobile Email Creation on Subscription Site Insider.