The Surprising Benefits of Converting Your Website into a Mobile App

In today's mobile-driven world, having a strong online presence is essential if you want your business to thrive. And now that 92% of users choose to browse the internet on their smartphones making sure your business is easily accessible through smartphones should be a top priority for all business owners.

This begins with making your website mobile-friendly, so your website works well in browsers on smartphones and tablets. But you can take it a step further by converting your website into an app to improve the mobile experience even more.

So today, we’ll explore the key advantages of converting your website into a mobile app and how it can positively impact your business.

Push Notifications

When you turn your website into an app, a major benefit is that you will easily be able to send push notifications to your app's users. While websites do also support push notifications theoretically, they have significant downsides when compared to push notifications of apps. You can use these notifications for various things: announcing a new blog post, sending out coupon codes or whatever else you can come up with.

Owning a communication channel like push notifications is extremely valuable, since it allows you to get your message to your target audience whenever you want at no cost. Compare that to other methods of reaching potential customers like advertisements, where you have to pay per user you want to reach.

Improved Visibility and Accessibility

Mobile apps are easily accessible and readily available on your users' smartphones, so they no longer need need to open a browser and search for your website. Instead they can just click your app icon. Don't underestimate the power of convenience!

Additionally, by having an app icon on their home screen, users regularly see your brand, which improves brand awareness. This makes them more likely to recall your brand when they think about a service you offer. Good brand awareness can bring in many returning customers but also increases the likelihood of your existing customers sharing your brand with other people who might need your service.

Another thing you might have experienced yourself (I certainly have) is this: when you're bored and on your phone, you sometimes just browse a random app without looking for anything specific. You benefit from that just by having your app on the user's device.

New Traffic Source

Mobile apps can be discovered and downloaded through app marketplaces like the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. By listing your app in these marketplaces, you expose your brand to a wider audience and benefit from the platforms' built-in search and discovery mechanisms. This increased visibility can lead to higher user acquisition and brand recognition.

Improved Performance and Speed

Mobile apps are designed to deliver faster and more responsive experiences compared to mobile websites. They are built with optimized code and streamlined functionalities, resulting in quicker loading times and smoother interactions. This improved performance leads to higher user satisfaction and lower bounce rates, ultimately enhancing conversion rates and driving business growth.

When turning a website into an app, the app will be just as fast as the website. But usually you can make your website fast enough to make it feel very responsive.

Offline Accessibility

One of the significant advantages of mobile apps is their ability to function even without an internet connection. As you know, nobody can view your website while they have no internet connection. Apps based on websites can change this slightly, since users will be able to see all important content that has been cached on the device, even while they don't have wi-fi or mobile data. Unfortunately this doesn't work with all websites, as it depends on the website's code, but it's a nice bonus for the sites where it does work. Luckily, internet coverage is expanding and getting better day by day, so even if your website doesn't work with the offline mode, you won't lose out on too much.

Increase Trust

These days almost anyone can quickly create a website, so it is no longer considered something special. Apps however remain out of reach for many businesses, since they assume it is very costly - which is true if you don't base your app on your website. Due to that, less than 0.3% of websites also have an app. Through this exclusivity, your brand immediately looks more professional and gains trust in the eyes of your customers and business partners.

Controlled Environment

When a user views your website with a browser, you are constantly at war with their attention span, since they could at any moment decide to visit a different website. After all, the browser doesn't belong to you, so it might have a bunch of distractions leading to other websites, such as bookmarks or suggested pages from the user's history. With an app, you can break out of the browser system and instead keep your users engaged with your own content because you have their undivided attention and less distractions trying to pull them away from your website.

Conclusion

In summary, you can see how an app has many advantages for your business. If you go for the affordable route of turning your website into an app, the app will quickly pay for itself.

Now that you know all the benefits of apps over websites, you probably also understand why so many popular websites push you to download their apps.