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The two most fundamental criteria to differentiate between native mobile apps and web apps is in terms of their capabilities and reach.
Capabilities to make use of maximum the device has to offer and reach in terms of maximum number of users it could touch and engage.
Native or platform-specific apps can harness almost all the capabilities of the device and platform for which they are designed, whereas, web apps can reach the largest number of users. In both cases, the reverse could be said with the same level of confidence and certainty.
Apps load faster and reliably work offline, but use more data, memory and battery. Websites are available to everyone but are slower and have a high bounce rate. In fact, more than 55% of mobile visits are cut short if a site takes longer than three seconds to load.
Reason is simple, and easy to understand – native apps cannot reach many users as they may use an incompatible or older device. And, web apps are opened in browser, dependent on patchy network, with limited access to the features of the device because of security reasons.
Progressive Web Apps fit just right in between these two giving the best of both worlds to the users, developers and brands that they represent.
A Progressive Web App or PWA is designed using with a single codebase with modern APIs to be capable, reliable and installable, allowing it to reach anyone, anywhere, on any device. PWA techniques ensure on reliably loading faster, even when offline, and using less data, resources and battery.
PWA provide companies and brands a roadmap to not only modernize their websites but to adapt them to users’ growing expectations.
As a brand manager or product head you are right in asking the questions like is this the solution that my customers want, how and by how much will it grow my business, and what is technically feasible with PWAs?
There are many benefits of using PWAs
Before answering those specific questions, lets find out what the benefits are of deploying PWAs in your overall digital and mobile-first strategy.
- Capability and reach: Progressive web apps eliminate the trade-off between capability and reach by using the web to deliver app-level experiences.
- No installation needed: Consumers no longer need to find and install your brand’s app in the app stores them – they just need to browse your site on any mobile browser and tap the “Add to Home Screen” button.
- Economical than apps: In comparison to creating separate content for different versions of iOS, Android, and even a website, the content is produced only once for website saving time, effort and money in development.
- Single location updates: : just as in production, with PWAs, you need not update different versions for different platforms. Actually, they do not need to be updated, at all!
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- PWAs improve SEO: PWAs are indeed websites accessible as apps on your mobile, therefore accessing it increases traffic to your website and its content contributes to Search Engine Optimization. Google provides tools to test how your PWA scores in search results.
- Push Notifications Unlike a mobile website, the PWAs can send push notifications whenever the data is available. Most users trust the notifications from the apps they have installed and react to them.
- Offline Usage: Just like mobile apps, PWAs can be accessed even without connecting to the internet. It is possible to work offline with cached data. For some actions, like submitting a form, you must connect to the internet.
- Lower usage threshold: : just as in production, with PWAs, you need not update different versions for different platforms. Actually, they do not need to be updated, at all!
- Access to new users and markets: PWAs can load fast even with a patchy or low-speed network like 2G or 3G. For companies wanting to enter emerging markets and engaging users with older devices, PWAs are a boon.
- No to app stores: PWAs can be found and “installed” directly via a search engine and other associated websites. Brands can promote their PWA through their social media channels, home page, or a link sent on message.
- PWA = mobile + web: PWAs provide almost all capabilities of a mobile app – like speed, offline usage, simple navigation, push notifications, camera use and, geolocation tracking – while providing web access to users.
Understand the business impact
When you look at many of the advantages progressive web apps have to offer, it is not very difficult to see why leading brands and companies would adopt them. The modern businesses realize the need engage the users and provide them with the best mobile experience regardless of platform.
You can define more engagement from the users and, therefore, the success of the digital strategy in more than one way:
- User spend more time on your content and service
- You record reduced bounce rates for your business leads
- Your sales team has significantly improved conversion rates
- Finally, you have more visitors returning and revisiting your app
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Properly designed PWAs have resulted in a very high mobile conversion rate, compared to slower websites, and without the additional costs of a native app.
- 68% upsurge of traffic from mobile devices
- Up to 15-times improvement in installation time and loading speed
- Up to 15-times improvement in installation time and loading speed
- 52% is the increase in average conversions
- 78% increase in the average session time
- More than 130% increase in user engagement
- 42.86% lower bounce rates compared to website access through mobile browsers
- 133.67% increase in page views for key listing pages
Research (source: https://appinstitute.com/progressive-web-apps-infographic/) has demonstrated that PWAs provide several key advantages to businesses, such as:
Social Media
Twitter one of the most prominent and an early PWA success story. Twitter Lite, its’s PWA, is less than one mb in size, saves more than 70% mobile data, loads 30% faster, and saw an increased usage – 75% more tweets.
Travel and Booking
MakeMyTrip, India’s largest and first travel and hotel booking site, launched its PWA to offer its users a reliable mobile booking experience seeing how network coverage was uneven and shaky. The brand saw its conversion rates increase 3-times and more than 160% increase in traveler session times.
News, Media and Publication
Forbes adopted PWA to keep the users continue reading what the had to offer. With the new PWA, they saw an increase of 43% in sessions, a 100% increase in engagement, and their news stories loaded in less than 2.5 seconds.
The Weather Channel users experienced an 80% improvement in site load time, and almost an additional million users opting in to receive push notifications when they launched their PWA.
ECommerce & Retailers
Retailers have started to use native app to engage loyal customers but offer a PWA to reach new users. Regular users of their PWA can then later be nudged into downloading the mobile app.
Alibaba.com, world’s largest B2B store, saw a 76% rise in conversions and 4x higher interaction rate after upgrading mobile site to a PWA.
Jumia.com, a German retailer with presence in many African countries, saw 9x increase in carts recovered, 38% more notification open rates, and more than 3% open rates than the native app.
Best practices for designing a Progressive Web App
For a mobile website or a web app to qualify as a progressive web app some quality standards are defined and need to be fulfilled:
1. Run on HTTPS – The PWAs use service workers or specialized javascripts to perform all actions on the client device. As unverified JavaScript code can be potentially dangerous for user security, PWAs must run only on a secure HTTPS channel.
2. Web App Manifest—The manifest file is a JSON file containing meta data like the application’s name, author(s), version, description, home screen icon about the PWA.
3. Implement a service worker—A service worker helps build the offline experience of the PWA using browser’s cache and provides push notification services.
2. Web App Manifest—The manifest file is a JSON file containing meta data like the application’s name, author(s), version, description, home screen icon about the PWA.
3. Implement a service worker—A service worker helps build the offline experience of the PWA using browser’s cache and provides push notification services.
Conclusion
So, not matter what your business aims and criteria for digital engagement are; no matter the geography, the client base or the device; PWAs deliver the best of both worlds and then some.
This article discusses the benefits, features and suitability of the progressive web applications for your users and business. If your aim is to capture the maximum market share, engage users more and at the same time keep your costs under check, progressive web apps are the way to go.
Raindrops Infotech is a leading PWA development company in USA, servicing a global base of clients in almost every business vertical and domain. Many of our global clients, who are none the wiser about PWAs, hire website developers in San Diego, get a PWA enabled website delivered bringing them more smiles they were expecting.
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