How Progressive Web Apps can drive business success
There are many reasons to consider building a PWA for your business. To understand “the why” let’s first look at some stats that help us better understand the digital landscape as it exists today.
- Less than two years ago, TechCrunch reported that the majority of U.S. consumers (51 percent) downloaded zero apps per month.
- According to Kissmetrics, almost half (47 percent) of consumers expect a page to load in two seconds or less, and 40 percent of consumers will abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load
- Search traffic from mobile increased to 60.28 percent of all traffic last year, according to Oberlo.com
- Gartner predicted in 2017 that by 2020 half of consumer-facing apps would be Progressive Web Apps.
What do these stats tell us? First, that there is growing app fatigue from consumers. So, any app that a user downloads needs to take up little space and provide critical information or an unparalleled experience. Second, load times for websites and digital experiences need to be fast and remove friction, or consumers will bounce. Third, mobile devices are dominating search, making it important for companies to have more than just functional websites, but sites with great, built-in UI no matter which device it appears on.
How do Progressive Web Apps work to solve these emerging problems and more?
PWAs are fast
According to a recent Google presentation, PWAs have a <1 second median load time, making them 4x faster with 10x less data. More than that, PWAs can work offline and in low-bandwidth environments, meaning more users and devices can enjoy the speed of PWAs without losing the quality of an experience.
PWAs are cost-effective
Because PWAs are device-agnostic, companies can invest in building one stellar web experience, which can then be packaged and deployed across channels and devices at a lower cost. This saves businesses time and money that, previously, might have been used to build native digital experiences separately for each device.
PWAs are easily discoverable
As consumers increasingly use mobile to search for brand information and experiences, PWAs lend themselves nicely to this trend. Because PWAs are built on the web, this means that the web indexes all of the content associated within this type of app, making companies with PWAs more searchable and discoverable while also contributing positively to SEO. Additionally, with growing support for PWAs they can now be easily installed on a device home screen, making them easier to find and download than traditional apps within an app store.
An excuse that’s often given when comparing the web versus building natively is the disparity in performance. But, as the web has evolved over the years into a more powerful platform, this gap has begun to close. As aforementioned, offline support, access to push notifications, lightweight ability to add to home screen, and more, give PWAs the power to meet the demands for native-like experiences without the cost and time it takes to build a native app.
While there are still use cases for building apps natively, for many companies trying to keep up with digital transformation efforts, progressive web apps make it faster, easier, and less expensive to do so. But no technology is without its challenges, so let’s explore those before we dive into PWA’s full range of benefits.