Several businesses have benefited tremendously from Progressive Web Apps since their introduction in 2015. They have the ability to deliver highly engaging user experiences while also reaching out to new audiences. Merchants can now give the same high-converting, app-like experience of a native app to a far bigger audience on the mobile web by using Progressive Web Apps, making this a must-have solution for businesses of all sizes.
What is a Progressive Web Application (PWA)?
A Progressive Web App (PWA) is a web application that takes advantage of the latest web technologies to give a native app-like experience to consumers. It’s the technology that will unify online and native programmes, allowing them to be replaced by a single instance.
Native apps have traditionally delivered a richer experience than mobile web, resulting in great engagement with the end user. A Progressive Web Application is a website that looks and behaves like a native app, which means it is extremely fast, can be put to a smartphone’s home screen, sends push notifications, and can even run offline.
Why Should Your Company Need a Progressive Web App?
Mobile traffic has now surpassed desktop traffic, with mobile devices accounting for 60% of all traffic — it is critical for merchants to create the greatest shopping experience possible in order to engage their audience. While mobile traffic is increasing, conversion rates are not: mobile traffic accounts for only 16% of overall conversion.
According to Google, when an ecommerce shop switches to a Progressive Web App, they often get a 20% increase in overall income, with mobile conversion rates doubling in certain situations.
Instead of a normal online store, any new or existing web shop should consider delivering their services as a Progressive Web app. Because the vast majority of ecommerce websites have yet to adopt this new technology, they provide a unique and exciting opportunity to stay ahead of the competition.
- Increased user adoption by placing the app on the home screen.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) provide an user – friendly experience with native-like features.. Progressive Web Apps can be installed on the home screen, allowing users to access them directly. The average number of apps downloaded by a smartphone user in a regular month is close to zero. People do not install apps.
It’s as simple as browsing a website and accepting a prompt to ‘download’ a Progressive Web App. The website will be transformed into a “real” app, rather than a browser shortcut, by being displayed on the user’s home screen. This accomplishes the same aim as downloading from an app store, but without the hassle of going through the app store. Furthermore, no further upgrades are required once the PWA is installed on the home screen. PWAs are updated in the background, ensuring that your users are always viewing the most recent content.
- Increasing user engagement with push notifications.
PWA, like a native app, allows you to send Push Notifications to mobile devices. Businesses can contact their target audience where they are most likely to be: on their mobile device, delivering a highly engaging user experience.
These simple messages have a great impact: they always catch people’s attention. Push Notifications have a significant advantage over traditional marketing, such as emails, in that they appear directly on a person’s phone; they stand out from the crowd; and, most importantly, a business does not need to make a significant effort to collect email addresses or other information before engaging with their audience.
- Lesser costs, quicker innovation, and continuous delivery.
Businesses who use an omnichannel, multiplatform strategy are currently developing, maintaining, and promoting up to four systems: their (responsive) website, their Android app, their iOS apps, and, in some cases, their Windows 10 native apps.
While developing, optimising, and maintaining a responsive website is already a time-consuming process, adding native app development can easily treble that investment. This is due not just to the creation of an app, but also to continual monitoring, maintenance, enhancements, and app store review processes (not to mention the infamous 30% Apple Tax).
- Exquisite instant performance.
Internet users are constantly seeking faster speeds, especially with the significant surge in mobile-first and mobile-online usage. People abandon a website after 3 seconds of page load time, according to surveys, and conversion rates drop by 21.8 percent for every 1 second delay in page speed. It’s almost unbelievable that mobile web pages load in 19 seconds on 3G networks and 14 seconds on 4G networks.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are designed from the ground up to give a seamless and fast user experience. By using the web’s speed benefits and ‘native-style’ client-side caching, it outperforms on page loads. PWAs can load in under a second, giving users a true “instant” speed experience that engages them right away.
- PWAs can help your SEO
Search engines can find everything in a PWA because it is web-based. Within a PWA, Google and Bing may connect to, distribute, and rank any content. Native apps, on the other hand, do not allow search engine robots to crawl them. By bridging the gap between online and native, users can have immediate access to the most sophisticated digital products on any device, at any time.
Super fast loading times, low bounce rates, little data usage, and highly engaging experiences are all natural SEO ranking boosters. With PWA providing benefits like these out of the box, it stands to reason that employing a PWA will result in greater SEO rankings. This is totally true if done correctly. Google will prioritise well-designed PWAs over traditional websites.
- Higher conversion rates.
A better user experience, it seems to reason, leads to increased conversion rates. When friction and hassles are removed from an online store, customers are more likely to fulfil their goals – and thereby the business’ aims. PWAs offer enormous opportunity to provide improved experiences in every way.
Whether you choose to go full PWA or start with simple steps like Push Notifications and ‘add to homescreen,’ implementing a PWA strategy should be a top priority for every type of business, big or small.
Anyone can begin to significantly transform the experience they give to their audience now, raising conversion rates — and ultimately enhancing their bottom-line results — with little required investments and a record-breaking time-to-market.