Having a mobile web presence for your online business has become a necessity of the hour. A recent report from Google indicates that smartphones have reached 56% of the US market, and 46% of these users have made a purchase on their mobile device. Businesses will end up missing out on a huge opportunity if they decide to ignore their mobile presence. The first crucial decision you need to make before going mobile is whether to choose a mobile website or a mobile app. In this post we will evaluate these two options to help you make the right decision:
Mobile apps: Mobile applications must be designed and developed for a particular mobile platform or operating system. This could include any or all of these: IOS (Apple), Android, Windows, Blackberry. Developing a mobile app for your business can be quite a time consuming process. Although it is an expensive exercise, it can often be worth the time and cost invested in it.
Mobile apps tend to be most successful when they provide real value to users by taking advantage of the functionality of the mobile device. A device’s camera, GPS user location, voice recognition, QR/barcode scanner, and other functionality must be used to deliver relevant and engaging content to your audience through a custom-developed mobile app. Make sure you use a good mobile app development company for this.
mobile websites: In the vast majority of cases, mobile apps may not be the best option for marketing your business to mobile users. Most of the time, businesses just need to provide a decent mobile experience for their existing websites. If your website acts as a primary digital selling tool and doesn’t require any mobile functionality, building a good mobile website is a much better option than building a mobile app. Many business owners are under the impression that their HTML site provides a decent user experience on mobile devices. But the fact is that almost always the website will not perform as well as a mobile-optimized or responsive website. Larger buttons and fingertip calls-to-action, increased spacing between elements to avoid tap conflicts, and fast load times are a few examples of elements that go into a responsive site. By developing a responsive site, your business may experience increased traffic and decreased bounce rate, which in turn will affect the conversion rate among mobile visitors.