Mobile Apps vs. Mobile Web Development: Which One Suits You?
People can no longer part with their smart phones. They live and breathe mobile usage where time is mostly spent on social media, online shopping, gaming, email, and other web-based applications. With the proliferation of more powerful mobile devices being offered at cheaper packages, we can only expect mobile phone adoption to increase at exponential rates in the coming years. This shift in the web landscape opens new opportunities for businesses to explore mobile web development changes.
Mobile Browsing Presents Lucrative Opportunities to Businesses
Many consumer-driven companies exhaust all means to reinvent themselves. This can be achieved if businesses they leverage on the market’s drastic shift to mobile browsing. Companies may explore all sorts of strategies to elevate their web presence through service announcements where product information, promos and discounts, partnerships, and other updates are fed when a customer hits social media ‘Likes’ and sharing tools. Through this mechanism, companies are able to drive in traffic to their sites, delivering substantial growth in terms of branding, popularity, and revenue sales – results that may be difficult to achieve through normal website views.
Companies should take advantage of this opportunity by stepping back and rethinking their website strategies. A few years ago, web browsing through PCs was king, which explains why resources were allocated to the creation of websites and applications optimized for desktops and laptops. However, since this is no longer the trend, businesses should learn to adjust and redefine their action plans towards producing an optimized mobile website.
Differences between a Mobile Website and Mobile Apps
Given that companies agree to the benefits of creating mobile sites, people question whether they should invest on a mobile website or a mobile app. Contrary to popular belief, a mobile website and a mobile app is not the same. If you do not know the difference between them, we have provided some clear comparison that separates them from one another.
Access: Mobile websites appear in search engine searches such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. A user who clicks on the URL of the mobile website can immediately access information on it. On the other hand, mobile apps needed to be downloaded first before users can access them.
Functionality: Mobile applications require a more in-depth user engagement. It also allows high functionality features essential in completing tasks. These tasks may vary from managing payments, tracking orders, or accessing data, and other forms. Mobile websites provide an interesting way to push customers into making some action.
Costs: Mobile application development costs can run from $3,000 to $8,000 depending on what you want web developers to implement on your site. In mobile web development, costs vary as well from project to project, with costs varying depending on features, number of pages, and complexity of a mobile website service. However, the costs are minimal and are based on a billed via monthly subscription payments.
There are providers that offer mobile web development templates and builder services free for mobile web development services. The service is offered free on the first year, allowing you to explore and evaluate if the features and services that come in as a part of the freemium service is something you want. If you are happy with the site, you can immediately subscribe to the cloud hosting service. If your site is an e-commerce site requiring a mobile dynamic interface, you can expect to pay a significant amount of money for security enablement, customization, and better user experience.
Development: Mobile applications are developed using high levels of programming knowledge beyond what most business owners were trained for. In most cases, you are going to need killer pages and design elements that needed some sort of technical sorcery and programming, which is definitely going to cost you money. Therefore, creating these applications require the expertise of web developers well versed in creating mobile applications.
Mobile web development, on the other hand, can now be done even by users that do not have any technical knowledge or experience. Because the interface is designed with a drag-and-drop navigation tool, anyone can convert a full website into a highly functional mobile version in minutes! Using hundreds of pre-built templates, you can build and customize content accordingly. You can choose how you want your website to look since options based on hierarchy and layout are provided. The result speaks for itself — professional-looking sites done with a few finger-tapping and zooming strokes on your mobile device.
The Final Duel: Mobile Web Development or Mobile Application Development?
From the moment the first mobile devices were introduced in the market, business owners have been faced with a dilemma whether to choose a mobile application or a mobile website. While it is ideal for a company to have both, mobile web development initiatives are more important to secure a mobile web presence. Mobile websites provide a better staging ground for customer interaction and engagement, which ultimately converts eyeballs to sales, and repeat businesses.
