How Progressive Web Apps Could Change the Mobile Landscape?

It is not at all an overstatement if we say that every single second of delay in mobile apps can cost millions. A recent study revealed that just a loading delay exceeding 3 seconds contributes to the decrease of 7% app traffic almost instantly. More than 50% of traffic will leave a website or an app if it fails to load within three seconds. This is particularly true for ecommerce and mobile apps. Loading speed plays a mission-critical role for business and mobile commerce apps.

Moreover, as Google is considering site speed a key consideration for search ranking, most business websites and apps are turning to latest technologies such as accelerated mobile pages (AMP) and progressive web apps (PWA) to boost their search ranks. The promise of PWA is literally huge for websites and web apps meant for marketing services, products and solutions to their customers.

Here through the length of this post, we are going to define PWA, explain its key features, comparing it with native apps and mobile websites and explaining the real world advantages for businesses.

About PWA

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are basically web apps that by utilising the cutting-edge web capabilities to deliver an app-like experience to users. These apps being deployed to servers remain accessible through URLs. Naturally, they are easily indexed by search engines besides other web search results.

Progressive web apps thanks to pre-caching capability loads instantly irrespective of the network quality. These apps have the capacity to load in connectivity condition or even while the user is offline. Thanks to pre-caching it delivers up-to-date contents every time Progressive Web Apps are launched irrespective of the network connection. Moreover, just like native apps users are able to save progressive apps on their home screen.

PWA vs. Native Mobile App

Native mobile apps are particularly popular for the unmatched user experience they offer. But they are also known for causing friction to users and developers on many accounts. While a comparable native user experience you can get through progressive apps you do not need to deal with the middleman-role of the app stores. This gives you total freedom from the guidelines of both the App Store and Play Store. Another important thing is, without updating the app manually you can get them up-to-date with the latest contents and functions.

In spite of offering a native app user experience in every regard, PWA also offers a lot of value by being web-ready and web-optimised. The progressive web apps are linkable and can just be launched right by clicking the URL. You can just use the PWA link in your text messages, social media posts, emails or you can just embed the same to a QR code. Thanks to this URL links, PWAs are also ranked by Google search engine alongside other web contents. Thanks to their fast loading speed and instant availability they are preferred by Google for search ranks compared to regular websites.

PWAs diminishes all the friction experienced by native app users when accessing apps and delivers the best of both web and native app ecosystem.

PWA vs. Mobile Website

Progressive Web Apps basically stand as a fusion of native apps and mobile websites. We have already seen how they incorporate some native app capabilities to the benefit of users in addition to their web-ready capabilities. PWA significantly make the user experience better in comparison to mobile websites. While they are equally linkable and search engine friendly, they offer instant loading capability which is a massive boost to the user experience.

A whopping 53% users leave a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. PWAs not only loads instantly, but they also load the updated content irrespective of the network condition because of their pre-caching feature. This elimination on the network dependence gives them an edge over traditional mobile websites. Moreover, PWAs offer many native functions such as native push messages, background updates, etc.

Important Features

Let us now understand the key features and technical abilities that shaped PWAs. All the features of progressive web apps are available across the devices and platforms without any network dependencies. Let us have a look at the key features.

• Feature enhancements can be incorporated progressively over the time as the app continues to grow and require more features.
• PWAs invariably need to work on a secure SSL connection. This ensures optimum security for the progressive apps.
• A well manifested .json file helps to save the website on the home screen just like a native app.
• The service worker which is nothing but a JavaScript file helps instantly caching and responding to push notifications instantly.
• Advanced web API incorporated in the PWA helps to give a lot of additional functionalities comparable to native apps.

Benefits Provided For Business

With so much in store, no wonder PWAs will be preferred by most businesses looking for sophisticated user experience, responsive user interactions and steady business conversion. Let us have a look at the real-life benefits of PWAs most businesses enjoy.

Push Notifications

Thanks to PWAs your website works like native apps and can send your customers to push notification messages with alerts for new products, services, promotional offers, sales and updates. This obviously gives more power to your web marketing efforts.

Pre-Caching

PWA is known to deliver up to date contents and load instantly irrespective of the network condition. This is largely attributed to its pre-caching ability. With the use of cache API and server worker PWA can stay updated with the latest contents and can load them even while the user is offline. That really helps a business to stay available and reachable all the time for its customers.

Beating The App Market Saturation

We all are aware of the stifling competition in the app marketplaces. Getting visible and discoverable remains a challenge now for most mobile apps in spite of the merit of their apps. This is where PWAs come as an appropriate solution for customers. While the app market is increasingly getting saturated, PWAs are providing you with a credible solution by bringing together the native app features while bypassing the app market competition. Progressive web apps running across all devices and platforms and also being ready for the web, come as a better solution than native apps.

Enhanced Business Conversion

Making the customer journey easy and straightforward is a necessity that most businesses are now concerned about. PWAs in this respect comes as an ideal solution. Progressive Web Apps allowing fast-paced loading, instant access to contents and smooth performance irrespective of network condition can certainly boost the business conversion.

Conclusion

Progressive Web Apps are all equipped to deliver us the best of both worlds, respectively native apps and the mobile web. By expanding native app to web app, you can bring together the performance and engagement of native apps and wider reach of the web together, they have the promise to become the ideal business solution.