When 3.5 billion smartphone owners use their smartphones, they spend 90% of their time browsing mobile apps. So by simply developing an app and putting it out there, you automatically get access to 3.5 billion new potential customers.
Nowadays your website serves as your storefront. It’s essential for every business, it has to attract new customers and give them an impression of what they will possibly find in the store. At the same time, a mobile app is a store itself. This is where customers find what they are looking for and buy your products. And as easier it is to use your app, aka navigate in the store, as more they are down to come back again. And having an app installed on their phones just makes it extra easy for them.
So in this article, let’s see the ways you can turn website into app, or should we say, create an easy-to-access store for your customers.
What Are The Benefits of Converting a Website Into Mobile App?
Besides having access to a big chunk of the world population, there are few other perks of converting your site into a mobile application.
- You create easy-to-share content Mobile apps are optimized to be simple and user-friendly. Also, your app will most likely be integrated with social media so that users can share app information on their pages. All of the above means great usability and free marketing, and that’s definitely a reason to make website into app. Besides this, it will improve the user experience and customer engagement.
- You become closer to your audience Besides having access to the crowd of 3.8 billion people, you also become very close to them. People use mobile applications for many routine tasks, and your app is right there on their phone, just a few swipes away. So yeah, when you convert website to app, you are becoming more than a brand for your customers. You are becoming part of their smartphone activity and their life.
Convinced? Now let’s discuss practical ways to turn website into app.
How To Turn Webpage Into App?
There are quite a few ways of doing so. From the easiest way of using an online converter to actually doing custom mobile app development, so you are totally free to pick an option based on your preferences and budget.
Website To App Converter
- You can convert your site into a WebView-wrapper
Such converters basically are building mobile websites. After it’s done, you can open your website in a browser and it will look like an app. Though such a method is famous for weird UX as the design is automatically generated.
- WordPress websites converters
It’s a simple, fixed-template converter. It’s a quick solution though it lacks flexibility – it doesn’t allow to add any new features besides those included in a template.
Progressive Web Apps
PWAs is a new technology by Google that allows both to do the website development and mobile app development at once. To convert website to app using PWA is very easy. You just build a service worker that adds basic mobile apps functions e.g. offline operation and push notifications to your website. Though at the moment, PWAs can only be used on Android.
Hybrid Mobile App Development
Hybrid mobile development is basically a combination of a native app and a web app. It’s also operational on all of the platforms. Hybrid mobile applications are functional on iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows.
There are two most popular frameworks: React Native and Ionic.
Native Mobile App Development
Native mobile applications allow you to create an app for a specific operating system. While it is the most time-consuming and expensive solution, app developers worldwide will agree that nothing compares to custom mobile applications in terms of quality and functionality.
If your web application is developed, then you only need to convert site to mobile app by developing mobile clients separately for Android and iOS versions. You’ll just connect web and mobile apps to your web client backend.
For Android mobile app development, the most popular languages are Java and Kotlin. For iOS – Objective-C or Swift.
So did we help you to make a decision?
After you picked a path to convert your website into a mobile solution, you will probably come to deciding on a strategy.
Project Strategies When Converting a Website To An App
Same as any other software development project, you better start off your big product from…
- Developing An MVP
Create a functional prototype that will contain all the core features, test it and update it as per user requirements.
- Focus On The Design
Follow the recommended UI/UX practices. Design-first approach is essential when it comes to developing all kinds of digital products.
That’s it. Looks easy, right? And actually it is. You just gotta
- Pick a suitable technology;
- Narrow a plan;
- Stick to it and take into account the basic principles of project management and design.
In Conclusion
There are plenty of options to develop apps and websites. And as you know now, there are quite a few options to convert your web resources into fully functional mobile apps too.
Also, if you already had an experience with website development, it will be very easy for you to explore the mobile platforms as well.
So if you are looking for app developers to help you with your new project, feel free to contact us anytime.
