Need of a Progressive Web App for Your Business Growth

Have you ever imagined using a website that works and feels the same as a mobile application? Users can install your website on any device, get a push notification and use it even if they are not connected to the internet. This is possible with the help of progressive web apps (PWA).

Progressive web apps have become famous because of the relative simplicity of their development, and it also provides a relative user experience compared to standard websites.

Know more: How Mobile Apps Will Help You Grow Your Business?

Most of the PWAs that are noticeable are offered by Trivago, Twitter, Alibaba, and Walmart. These famous markets have reported doubled conversion rates and have fast revenue growth after the release of their PWAs. 

What Are Progressive Web Apps?

Mainly a progressive web application is a technology that can add application functionality to a website. You can say that PWA is a hybrid of application and website. PWA can be easily installed on the home screen of your mobile devices or desktop right away from the browser.

For instance, progressive web applications are the same as Google Docs due to their characteristics being similar to installed programs, but they function directly in the browser. 

In simple terms, we can say that a progressive web application is a normal website that functions and feels like a mobile application. Small sites can also use progressive web application technology to develop fast and convenient news aggregation products. 

Here are the technologies that can be used in the development of PWA:

• Service worker – it is located at the heart of PWA. They are the files situated between the network and the browser layers.
• HTTPS – a PWA needs all resources to pass through the HTTPS protocol. 
• Web app manifest – this is the JSON file that gives the application’s name, the icon, the view of the PWA, and some of the other parameters.
• App shell – it is said to be the frame or template of the user interface. If you remove the site’s contents with all the dynamic data, all that is left is just the app shell. 
• Push notifications – the users of PWA, can get push notifications, and almost everything that is PWA will give push notifications. 

Features of PWA (Progressive Web App):

• Responsive
• Connectivity independent
• App-like 
• Fresh
• Safe
• Discoverable
• Re-engageable
• Installable
• Linkable

How can a progressive web app help you with your business growth?

• Save time and resources for your business
• Quick installation
• Fast loading
• Work faster after initial loading
• SEO improvement
• Better performance
• The versatility of platforms and devices
• Automatic update
• No application distribution services
• Completely autonomous work
• Push notification functionality
• Enhanced security

Save time and resources for your business

Native applications will require time and effort to support different platforms, such as Android and iOS, making their creation and maintenance very costly.

Moreover, PWA can be implemented with just one code base, simplifying and reducing development and maintenance costs. This wipes out the need to create a different application for both Android and iOS. This will save a lot of resources for your business when creating, hosting, and marketing the application. 

With the help of a progressive web app, you can get a better and easy way to provide users with an app-like experience. Additionally, updating an existing website using PWA features will cost much less than developing a native application from the base.

Quick installation

Dissimilar to the conventional mobile application, progressive web applications don’t require a long and complicated installation process, enhancing user experience.

Find more: Top 11 mobile application Development Tools

After installing the application, users can access it through the app icon situated at the home screen of their mobile devices or desktop. This will allow users to engage the user and increase conversion directly.

Users can easily install the PWA app from the App Store or Google Play. Users can also use PWA apps through a URL, making it easy to interact with the service. 

Fast loading with progressive web app

Another compelling example of a progressive web application is fast loading speed, and it can even load with the worst internet connection. This is possible because of the pre-caching that PWA provides.

Speed is a very crucial part of any business. You can assume from the user’s behavior that if the application takes much time to load, they can abandon the use of that particular application because of the slow loading speed.

Read more: Top Methods for Optimizing Frontend Performance

However, PWAs have particular benefits for your business in SEO because faster loading speed will enhance search engine indexing. 

Work faster after initial loading

After the initial loading, or once the application is loaded after installing it, there is no need to reload the application every time you open it. On the other hand, a regular website uses a browser cache to avoid constantly reloading the same data. But in PWA, the same element doesn’t require re-visualization. 

SEO improvement

From a search engine optimizer view, search engines always view advanced web applications like websites and index them fully. Native apps are not indexed by nature.

Additionally, PWA is just a website, so users can easily share a link and is optimized with a backlink strategy. This is capable of increasing the SEO ratings, which is not possible with native applications. 

Better performance

Many websites make use of progressive web app technology to enhance their performance. Progressive web applications cache and serve content in a unique way that allows them to work like websites, automatically increases work speed, and improves performance.

High performance is another factor that affects user experience and conversion rate. As a result, this type of software is especially more valuable for retailers and content vendors. It will also provide more user experience than mobile applications because of better user retention and loyalty. 

The versatility of platforms and device

Compared to regular web applications, progressive web applications don’t require different versions for different devices.

Progressive web applications can work everywhere. Only one progressive web application can fulfill the needs of all the endpoints on which it is working.

PWAs also provide continuous operation for users who want to switch between their devices. Additionally, progressive web applications fit correctly even with different screen sizes. 

Also Know: Which Web Testing Application Tools You Must Try

Automatic update

The functions of progressive web apps enable them to update automatically without even notifying users and sending them permission requests.

Because of this, the company can update the necessary content and functions without the need to force the users to download or install the package. This can give a positive user experience to the web application. 

No application distribution services

Mainly application distribution services such as Google Play or App Store, or Microsoft Store have a high demand for the software that gets included in the software.

Moreover, if the company doesn’t fulfill the requirements, services can permanently delete the application from the database without any warning. PWAs allow developers to avoid difficult agreement procedures since they don’t need to store in the same device. 

Whilst comparing progressive web apps to mobile apps, we should neglect to consider app distribution services. Problems do occur when trying to attempt to submit a program to an app distribution service and it can even take much time and a lot of effort. Although it can also remove the software without giving any warning. 

Learn more: Choosing the Right Cross-Platform Web Application

Completely autonomous work

These applications will store the information that was previously used by the users, such as web pages. If they try to open the pages that they haven’t visited on the internet, the application can also display a custom offline page. This is essential for the retailers as the application will prevent users from discarding their catalogs and increase customer retention. 

Push notification functionality

Using the advantage of push notification helps the company to make the finest use of advertising. More than half of the users enables the progressive web applications to send them to push notification.

This, in fact, increases the chances of promoting goods and services. Moreover, notifications will be displayed on the screen of mobile devices, so they will likely be able to attract the users’ attention, especially in comparison with newsletters, blogs, or posts on social media. 

Thus by using PWAs, the company can be able to get better access to its targeted audience. It also increases brand awareness among the people with the help of push notifications and app icons on device desktops. 

Enhanced security

Progressive web applications use HTTPS to save the data from all the communications with the users. Thus the protocol eliminates the tracking and false content that includes payment transactions, customer information, and browsing history.

Additionally, applications can take advantage of Web Bluetooth technology, including certain features for security purposes. 

Conclusion:

Suppose you have decided to develop an application but are confused about which platform to choose and what application you must develop, mobile or web.

In that case, you can choose a progressive web application. I suggest choosing a progressive web app for application development as it is the best choice and perfect solution to all your confusion and problems. 

In this blog, I have mentioned features, benefits, and an overview of a progressive web app that you can go through before developing an application. You can also hire a progressive web app development company to develop your PWA.