Mobile Website Or Mobile App – Which Must You Build First?
App Builder Appy Pie, March 12. 2018: This is a mobile first era where every business is looking ahead into the future with a fabulous mobile app for their business to fall back on. However, in some cases the developers have mentioned the merits of the mobile websites and have advocated building one before going on to build a full fledged mobile app. This doesn’t mean that it is a thumb rule, as there are circumstances that warrant building a mobile app before building a mobile website. At the first glance, the mobile websites and apps might appear to be very similar, and to come up with the decision and choose one over the another can prove to be quite a tough one. Let’s try and understand what a mobile website is, in simple terms and how is it different from a mobile app.
Why care about mobile users?
The mobile platform has a discernible edge over the traditional platforms for marketing. Whether you create a mobile app or a mobile website you get the advantage of leveraging the native features of the mobile phone, letting you send push notifications, targeted campaigns by accessing their location, and more. The biggest reason to care about mobile users is – everyone is there! No matter which niche group or mass you are targeting, they are spending a considerable amount of time on their mobiles. They are looking for products or services just like yours on their mobile browsers or on the app stores.What is a mobile website?
There was a time not so far back in the future when smartphone, tablets, or any other mobile devices of any kind were not really a ‘thing’. In those times the websites were developed only to be displayed on laptops or desktop computers. At this stage the design was not built to be responsive, which essentially means that it lacked the natural capacity to scale itself according to the screen size that it was being viewed on, hence viewing them on smaller screens was not so easy. This was not really an issue at the initial stage, but as the mobile devices became more and more popular, and slowly began assuming the position of the preferred medium of accessing content on the web. This brought the challenges of using a website to light. This is when mobile websites emerged as a solution to this discomfort of the people who were mostly on the go and depended on their mobile devices when it came to accessing content. This led to quite a few small and medium business owners to create a mobile version for their existing websites so that their users could easily view the website and their content even when they were on the move and use them without a mouse, instead with taps.What is the difference between a mobile site and a mobile app?
The mobile apps and the mobile website are both meant to be accessed through hand held devices like smartphones or tablets. Like any other website, a mobile website too consists of browser based HTML pages linked together and accessed over internet (WiFi, 3G, or 4G networks for mobile). Mobile apps, however are actual applications that may be downloaded and then installed on your mobile device (smartphone or tab, or any other), instead of being rendered within a browser. In order to look for, and download apps, the users visit specific app stores according to their devices’ operating systems like Google Play Store, Apple App Store, Blackberry World and more. Unlike mobile websites, mobile apps can also pull content or data, even when they are not connected to the internet.Factors That Would Help You Make A Choice
Making the choice between a mobile website and a mobile app can turn into quite a conundrum, but the fact of the matter is that the choice is dependent on the end goals that you are looking to achieve. For example, if the intent of your project is to develop an interactive game app, a mobile app makes more sense than developing a mobile website. However, if your goal lies in offering your content to the largest possible audience, then a mobile website would serve the purpose a lot better than building a mobile app. There may be some instances that warrant the need to develop both, an app and a mobile website simultaneously, but choosing one of the two, depends entirely on the following factors.1) Speed & Accessibility
Does it need to be said? A mobile app is definitely a lot faster than a website, and many times more interactive making it an engaging experience for the users. Another fun thing that you can do with mobile apps is let them access phone features including the phone contacts, or GPS for navigation, or the phone camera, an ability that a website lacks totally. However, one important thing to remember is that the app first needs to be installed on the device before it can be used in any way and a mobile website that is built well can simply be accessed by navigating from a mobile web browser. So, though the mobile app is a lot faster and easier to use, the app has accessibility issues as it needs to be installed first on the device. Apart from this, the app that you design would have to be developed separately for all the platforms including Google Play Store, Apple App Store, Microsoft Store, and more! This is so because, developing the app for just one platform is going to limit your audience for sure. However, one major benefit of developing an app is that it can actually make your content available to the users even when there is no internet connectivity.2) Cost Effectiveness
3) User Friendliness
Mobile websites offer static, navigational user interface, whereas a mobile app has great potential to create an interactive user interface. Quite a few of the issues encountered with mobile websites have been taken care of by the responsive web design solutions, especially when it comes to the usability issues, but when it comes to user-friendliness, the experience offered by the mobile app is unparalleled. It is probably for this reason that some of the best interactive games are being developed in the mobile app format, and not in the web app format. Hence pay attention to the desired interactive quotient that you desire with the users before deciding in favor of building a mobile website over building a mobile app.4) Marketing Perspective
If yours is a startup and you have put in place a systematic investment plan, then you have probably taken a long hard look at the fundamental marketing channels prevalent and relevant today. Spare it another thought and analyze whether these plans make better sense in the context of a mobile app or a mobile website.- Search Engine Optimization or SEO – this marketing channel works beautifully well for a mobile website, but doesn’t have context or significance when it comes to a mobile app. When you have a mobile website, you have, at your disposal the biggest free platform of search engine traffic. Even when it comes to the paid SEO, it hardly makes any sense to market a mobile app on Google AdWords.
- Affiliate & Referral Marketing – This is one of the more effective media of marketing, but yet again works a lot better in context of a mobile website when compared to a mobile app.
- App Store Marketing – Many consumers go to the app stores in search of what they might be looking for and they tend to conduct these searches on their mobile devices. In this context having a dedicated mobile app gives you a much better chance at being ‘discovered’. However, the chances of you being ranked high in the search results depends on your ASO game and keyword listings.
- Traditional Mass Media – This includes print, television, radio and other traditional media, but requires you to have deep pockets! This medium works equally well for the website and the mobile app.
5) Need For Integrating Device Features
6) Frequency Of Improvements & Updates
If you feel that you would need to keep making your app better at frequent intervals, it is advisable to go for a mobile website first. It essentially means that all the improvements and the changes would happen on the website and the customers would not have to keep updating the whole application, every time you make some changes. This also means that you would have to make these frequent changes on only one platform, instead of making each change separately on all the platforms that you have built your app for. Also, you would not have to wait for a long time to actually be able to see that change that you made which might take anywhere between one to five days, as you get the result immediately after you upload it on the server.Conclusion
For both mobile websites and mobile apps, the idea is to cater to the mobile users. While making a choice between the two, it is important to understand the differences and the pros and cons of both. Mobile applications offer a more personalized and rich experience to the user, however, getting a prospect or even an existing customer to download your app is another ballgame. Even if you do get them to download your app, you would have to work continuously to retain their interest. Responsive mobile websites definitely offer great flexibility by letting you target the customers from both desktop and mobile devices, but the start-up costs are definitely higher when compared to mobile-only sites. Most start-ups or business owners hesitate when it comes to exploring the mobile platform particularly because of their lack of understanding about the platform and the perception of high costs involved. This is where no code platforms like Appy Pie come in. Not only can you create your own app but even build your own website without learning to code or burning a hole in your pocket. What are you waiting for?Get StartedRelated Articles
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