A Website And A Mobile App Together Can Help Grow Any Business

Businesses started migrating to internet in the early 2000's. Back then the only goal of website designing was to display products and services using images and text, and catchy phrases. The entire structure was built upon series of tables, rows and columns. And then a magic called "Google Happened". Even though Google was launched during the late 1990’s, its popularity and usage exploded around 2004, when it got accessed 200 million times a day. The only other search engine back then, Yahoo! took a lot of bashing.

Cut to 2022 –

In one of the recent studies, it was found that Google received 5.6 billion search requests per day or 2 trillion searches per year! Moreover, the whole concept web designing and Web app development turned on its head. From 2004 to 2022, the designing and programming of web properties revolved around Google. It was not just about fancy pages and crisp images; it was about fetching that elusive top rank in Google's search engine.

Yet another history that was concurrently happening was the growing popularity of Mobile App development, especially after 2007 when the first iPhone was launched. With the gradual increase in smart phone manufacturers and the introduction of Android operating system, the entire mobile phone ecosystem evolved. 

In 2009 Android 1.5 Cupcake was released, and it also gave birth to the tradition of Android naming convention. Cupcake introduced numerous refinements which led to the popularity of mobile apps. Together with the evolution of smartphones, the web and mobile app domains galloped in terms of popularity, valuation and it also gave birth to a new services sector “Android app development”.

The above digital revolution also offered a newer platform to organizations to display and market their products and services.

The power of smartphones can be gauged from this single data point - 25% of all web traffic originates from smart phones and hand held devices. There is more. The estimated sales value of Play Store in 2021 stood at $47.9 billion while that of App Store at $85.1 billion.

Website Designing OR Application - The million dollar question

The above question torments most of the small and medium sized organizations because of budget constraints and managing the same post launch. Here is the simple answer.

Developing only mobile application is not advisable because B2C and B2B customers will not Google search for an app. However, the same folks will definitely exploit Google to find out more about a particular brand or product.

In short, only a website can drive traffic and thereby popularize the application. Moreover, websites can be easily optimized and fine-tuned to fetch higher page rank and thereby traffic. On the flip side websites have their limitations. This is where an application and iOS app development businesses shine. A mobile app, Apple or Android allows organizations to offer personalized services through push notifications and thereby quality engagement. Apps can also easily exploit hardware and software resources of the device to build intelligent / practical applications.

Web App Development - The First Step

Businesses, especially those with limited budget and fewer staff should opt for a website first, instead of seeking a Mobile App development entity. It provides triple benefit -

1. Drives organic traffic to the website through strong SEO. Organizations need to understand that organic traffic doesn’t cost a penny but provides consistent flow of leads.

2. It helps the business owner/s to talk about their products and services, and if the need arises sell them right from the website.

3. Provide a link to the mobile application (If it has been developed or allocate space for it). Business can also brief the visitor about the benefits of downloading the app, its features and how it can make their experience more gratifying.

These days every good Website designing firm builds web pages around Bootstrap framework (Scaffolding principle) that adjust to the user’s device screen size automatically. It simply means, a website provides the above benefits not only through desktops and laptops but also via mobile phones.

Organization need to analyze their targeted audience and their product/service. Most of the iPhone users tend to spend freely on mobile apps vis-à-vis Android phone owners. Moreover, if your business is aiming to target a large user base of smartphone owners then Android app is the way to go. Choose an Android app development agency wisely as smartphones built along this platform are scattered and varied.

Now, here is the catch. Not all businesses need an application. Yes, this is absolutely true. However, there are products and services which cannot survive without it. Mentioned below are some examples/categories where an app is crucial for its success and only a reputed Mobile App development agency can make it happen.

• Gaming & Entertainment - Building a website for gaming and entertainment apps such as Angry Birds and Netflix is simply foolish. Most of the folks use their smartphones to exploit these resources. An app is also easy to update, engage (subscription status) and serve a host of other informative tidbits.

• Personalized Services - Banking, insurance, food and cab aggregating services cannot operate without an app. These mobile applications exploit some of the native features and hardware for a feature rich experience. A website in these cases functions only as a source of information / download link while the real action takes place on the app itself.

• Productivity, Collaboration Tools & Software - Apps such as Asana, Trello, WPS Office and Docs to Go are smartphone based apps (based on iOS App Development and Android App Development). These have little use if accessed through a normal website. These nifty yet powerful applications make the task of working on the go hassle free.

• Native Features - GPS, motion sensing, click-to-call, SMS are some of the native characteristics of smartphones that allow Android app development agencies & iOS app development folks to enrich these them further. These firms typically exploit device libraries and associated development framework functionalities to build a user friendly, customer driven (Push notification based) and value added app.