Progressive Web Application For Your Business
In 2021, according to Statista reports there are more than 4.66 Billion internet users in the world. From that, there are 4.32 Billion users who use mobile phones to browse the internet.
Isn’t these numbers valuable for your business?. Approximately yes, Aren’t they are important. But there is a huge race among the companies to make their position in a higher stand in this race. As a company, we want to give more focus on mobile internet users.
How can your business get success from this race? Will your responsive web app is enough for this. There are many limitations to that type of website. Even you can’t send push notifications from it to keep engage with your customers. Then you are looking for a native mobile app. Is it the better solution? So, the company has to spend too much money to make applications to every platform like Android, ios, Microsoft. It is more expensive. But today I’m bringing you a solution for this. It is Progressive Web Applications (PWA). Let’s see will this be a good answer. Go ahead!
What is PWA?
Can you imagine a web application delivery through the web, build using common web technologies including HTML, CSS, JavaScript? Right, it is the simple definition for the Progressive Web Application.
For better understanding let’s go ahead with a simple example. After that let’s talk about what are the advantages and limitations of this technology.
I created an online bulb selling website called bulb Hub.
This is a normal website I created using normal web technologies. If a user wants to buy something from this website he/she wants to type my website domain and go to the website. But that’s not engaging. Even I can’t send any push notification if I added a new stylist bulb to my store. If I create a native app, I want to develop it for every platform. It is too expensive.
So, I tried PWA technology.
After adding PWA technology, when users visit my website there will be a prompt message asking that “Add BULB HUB to Home screen”. If the user is interested in my store then he/she can click it. It will install like a little app in few seconds with a logo. Amazing! You can see it on your page.
If a user clicks it he/she can see a splash screen too.
It will open like a real application.
Advantages of PWA
There are many advantages to PWA. But here I’m writing about the main advantages of PWA.
When a user is offline they don’t expect to go to a website. Usual webpages display a “no internet connection” alert. But PWA not doing that. They keep users engage with the website. As an example think about Twitter. If there is a PWA for Twitter, then users still can read tweets when they are offline. They can comment, retweet, and give a heart to that post. So it saves on the mobile cache memory and when the mobile get connected to the internet PWA can perform those actions.
Companies may be able to cut costs by developing PWA for their online preference. Because they do not need to develop native apps for Android, ios, etc. PWA on any platform. Also, if a native app updates its features or appearance they have to ask users to update it from application stores. But if they use PWA no need to do such a task. These PWA are always fresh. If the website changes it automatically changes. Also, if companies make native apps for their brands, they have to put them to the application stores. There are also some steps to take their apps up. Like app store optimization. But in PWA there is no such a task. The only we need is the SEO of the website.
Not like responsive websites, PWA have some hardware capabilities. And these are easy to access on a device because they use less amount of data and hardware of the device. It will help to work with devices which are weak performance.
You can keep your users engage with PWA because it gives chance to send push notifications to users. Users can easily access the app PWA when they get a push notification from you.
Limitations of PWA
The main limitation of this technology is developers have to pay more time to develop these PWA when developing websites.
Can’t access the full hardware of the device. There are some restrictions because PWA is working with a browser. And older browsers are not supporting this technology.
But overall I think PWA has many advantages over limitations.
Bonus Tip
Here is a gift from me. If you hope to develop PWA for your business remember things below.
Here you are touching users' minds, where the user already has an idea of native applications. They don’t know whether this is a Native app or PWA. They are looking for more functions. So, developers have the responsibility when developing the PWA to pay attention to that. Because you have to keep your users engaged. Because you are competing with high-quality native apps. Develop PWA where a user is matching their mental model and expectations.
Thank You. I think you got some knowledge about the Progressive Web Applications and how they affect the success of the business on the online presence. Go Ahead!
