5 Reasons to Convert Your Website into Mobile Apps
When was the last time you used your desktop to book a cab or order food online? It has been quite some time, right? Think about it, if you have not used a mobile application to do these normal things, why would any other person do that?
And it does not stop at booking a cab or ordering food. You can invest money, conduct big transactions, shop, and the list goes on…
Businesses are quickly latching on to this idea that building an application is better and much more profitable than a website. You can have a website, which is important to drive your marketing campaigns. Still, you cannot expect to harness the full potential of the market position today without a mobile application.
The choice between an application or a website should not be a tough one to make, considering the benefits provided by each of them. But if that’s the case for you, here are the top five reasons to convert website into app.
Must Read: Mobile App Development Process: Easy Step to Build your First App
Reasons to Turn Website into App
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Meet your User’s Expectations
An eMarketer research finds that people are spending 90% of their digital time on mobile phones. In 2019, people spent 2.43 hours per day using mobile applications and only 27 minutes on websites.
This shows that the majority of your customers, irrespective of the industry, are also using mobile every day. In this scenario, not having a mobile application means your business only has 27 minutes to get a response from the intended audience, and that is not enough.
In another research by Mary Meeker, the number of hours people spend on their phones in a day is 3.6 hours (2018). Add this with the fact that there were 6055 billion active smartphone users in the world in 2020.
Combining all these factors, it must be clear that when you turn website into app, you can leverage your audience’s heightened usage of mobile phones. People are not accustomed to using applications, but using them has become an integral part of their lives.
From fitness to learning to eat food and getting entertained, mobile apps are everywhere. Not having one for your business means you are missing one of the greatest opportunities to reach out to your audience.
Moreover, with a website, you cannot prompt the users to come back to you unless they need new or additional information. But with a website going out and interacting with your audience is easier.
Think of all these aspects, and they will help you understand why you should convert your website into a native app.
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Better Functionality
Mobile applications offer much better functionality than a website at any given time. Given that you only have a website, you may not believe this, but hear us out.Have you seen the latest IKEA app? IKEA is giving its users a feature to check the product they wish to buy by placing it in the intended place with virtual reality. Because people have a smartphone in their hands, they can use this function.Because applications can offer such functions, you must convert the website into an app and let your audience access these advanced features. Similarly, mobile applications have GPS tracking features, push notifications, and several other functions to improve the user experience.
More than features, applications make it easier to connect with the users. Applications can easily send push notifications that will encourage the users to keep coming back.
Assuming that you are into a business where you directly deal with the end-users, having a mobile application improves customer service. Your customers can get quick help, post pictures, and chat with the support service, etc.
Similarly, you can add several other functionalities intended to improve the customer experience.
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Applications Help Build a Loyal Customer Base
Another important reason to turn website into app is driving more loyalty towards and increasing customer engagement. The fact that your potential customers will visit the play store or app store to download your application means they are ready to invest.
But are you?
Having an application means you are giving your audience a chance to access your service on a tap. Your icon will be displayed on their home screen or menu. Every time a person uses their mobile, they will see your application.
That is enough to remind them about your services and offers constantly. Plus, by sending them notifications, you can keep them updated about anything and everything new happening on your platform.
To prove this, look at the findings of a research by ChartBeat;
- Customer loyalty is higher with mobile applications than websites.
- Mobile application users are loyal than any other medium you are using to interact with your customers.
- Mobile app visitors are 6X more loyal than visitors coming from other platforms.
Loyalty and engagement via an application is one of the best things you will get. This also becomes a strong reason to turn website into app.
In terms of engagement, websites are not less. Albeit, with websites, you can get a wider outreach and attract a larger audience than an application. But websites don’t offer an extended system to maintain and improve the customer’s loyalty.
Moreover, if you market it right, you can easily improve the application’s outreach and ability to attract new users. But the things an application can offer, you may not get them with a website.
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Applications have Better Performance
There are different metrics to judge the performance of a digital solution. It can be uptime, processing speed, UI/UX, etc. The thing with applications is that you can customize it to ensure optimal performance.
Once you convert website into app, you can add bespoke features and functions while ensuring higher performance. Moreover, with a website, we are still dependent on browser-based features.
For instance, hitting the back button, bookmarking, refresh, etc. The point being you have limited options on a browser. But with a mobile application, you can use the plentiful interactive options.
Applications provide amazing freedom in terms of designing and customizing the UI/UX. Because you have extensive designing options, branding your product or service is also easier.
You can easily experiment with the branding part and add bespoke styles to your application. Mobile applications can be customized to fit perfectly with any screen size, called responsiveness.
The same responsiveness is not as adept with websites, ergo hurting the user experience. With an application, you can add any number of interfaces until everything you want to share with your audience is complete. But with a website, adding more than usual pages will complicate the navigability.
Lastly, an application can also be accessed without the internet. Yes, it may not provide full-scale functionality, but an application can be programmed to provide limited functionality offline. This is something you won’t get with a website.
Offering offline accessibility is a great way to ensure that your audience can depend on your application anytime, anywhere.
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Better Monetization
Mobile applications are better at generating revenue than websites, period. With features like in-app advertisements, eCommerce, subscriptions, etc., you gain more with an application.
When you don’t convert website into app, you are missing these monetization options. Plus, it is easier to drive eCommerce sales with mobile applications if your business has some product or service to sell.
Besides helping you make more money, a mobile application can also help you earn by saving. Your mobile app can work as a unified platform to combine different business goals and add them to the marketing mix. This practically brings down the final cost of engaging with the audience.
Besides these, you will get a slew of other benefits after converting your website into a native app. Where branding and the ability to engage with the audience have the strongest hand, the ease of sending push notifications, personalizing the user experience, attracting new users, and quick navigation are other benefits.
Mobile applications are responsive, fast, and easily integrate the latest technologies like AI, ML, VR, AR into their functioning. As a result, the scope of adding better functionality in your application is remarkably amazing.
With the reasons to turn website into app covered, let’s find out the ways to convert website into app.
Options to Convert a Website Into an Application
You can convert a website into an application via different routes. Each one of them has its pros and cons, and we are going to discuss them.
- Start Coding Yourself: If you have experience in development, you can start coding the application yourself from scratch. You can also hire a team of in-house developers to support your development and speed up the process.
Advantages- The benefit of coding it yourself is that you can personally take care of every detail, and by taking an active role in the exercise, you can also improve the outcome.
- As you work on the project, you can also easily bring the team up to speed about the purpose and objectives of building the application. It will take less time to understand the feedback and communicate the requirements within the team.
- On the whole, you are looking for a super smooth development operation if you have the reins in your hands.
Disadvantages:
- Working on the coding part yourself also means that you will have to spend more time and money while working on the entire process. Hiring an in-house team is great but getting developers is expensive.
- Plus, you have got to decide between the type of application. Will it be a native app or a hybrid? The answer to this needs a lengthy discussion. You need to determine which technologies you will use for the development and answer several other questions.
- For a small business or a startup, the process to convert website into app won’t be easy. The costs of doing so alone will force you to look for other options.
- Hire Freelancers: Freelancers are professionals who are not associated with a company and work alone. Presently, a lot of people are taking the freelancer route to make a living. Choosing a freelancer for your work is cost-effective, but it also involves going through a lengthy vetting process.
Advantages:- Depending on the technologies you want to use for building the application, you will find a ton of freelance developers. The best thing about hiring a freelancer is the cost. You will save a lot of money, for sure.
- Plus, freelancers are available round the clock, and you can choose one from any country you want, after assessing their abilities, of course.
Disadvantages:
- Freelance developers have a lot to offer in terms of expertise, experience, and low costs; managing them can be a tough task.
- One of the issues you may face is communication. You will find it hard to establish a stable communication channel subject to the time zone they are working from.
- You can find a lot of freelance developers, but it won’t be easy to find the right one quickly. Finalizing one freelancer can take time and effort. There will be a lot of back and forth while hiring a freelancer, and even after you have hired them, there may be issues with ensuring deliverability.
- Outsource to an Agency: Another option to convert website into app is hiring a mobile app development company, and it is one of the most practiced routes.
Advantages:- The benefit of working with an agency is that you will save on expenses, time and get the product with intended quality.
- Yes, the quality of the product may not be similar to the one you will get with an in-house team, but it will be better than what you’ll get from a freelancer. The reason is, development agencies have their entire team working from a single place.
- They have developers, designers, and project managers working on your project. You can get into a formal contract with them and even sign an NDA to prevent sharing of confidential data.
- The best part is that you won’t have to devote too much of your time in managing the project and working on other aspects of the business logic.
Disadvantages:
- The downside of working with an agency is that it’ll take time to find the right agency. With a long list of available options, you need to be thorough with the selection process.
- Use an Application Builder: The last option to convert website into app is using an online website builder for the process. It’s a good option for anyone not familiar with the coding process but has the time to try things out and learn along the way.
Advantages:- Using an app builder is one of the cheapest options to build an app. For a small business or a startup looking to convert website into app, this is the best option.
- Depending on the time you put in, you can substantially reduce the time to market and launch the application quickly.
Disadvantages:
- Using a DIY app building is easier said than done. You need the patience to learn about application development. There will be a lot of tweaking involved.
- It’s a templated approach, and you won’t get everything you want in your application. You may have to compromise with some of the features and functions.
After going through the ways to build an application, which method do you think is the best of all?
Conclusion
As you work on an appropriate method to convert website into app, make sure to follow the tenets of building an app. Do not build everything at once. Prepare a blueprint of the application first and create a rough draft of the same. Create a couple of mockups and prototypes and a list of the most important basic features.
Build the most viable product first before scaling the application. The process of converting the website into an application won’t be easy or short; it’ll be a lengthy process. So be prepared to hustle your way around it.
From the discussion above, it is easy to make out that hiring a mobile app development company is a great way to turn website into app. And when that development company is MobMaxime, you will further stand to gain.
We follow agile development methodologies and ensure that your vision and objectives are perfectly represented within the application. Contact us to know more about how we can help you convert website into app at affordable prices and record time.
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