Are you planning to make your online business easily accessible to your customers even when they are using their mobile phones? You might be thinking about having a responsive website or a mobile app or maybe both. At first, you might think mobile apps and website to be quite similar. But, in reality, they aren’t the same. Whether you should have a mobile app or website will largely depend on your targeted audiences, features required, intended purpose, and budget. For both or any of these, you will need the help of a website and mobile app development company.
Before evaluating the benefits of responsive website versus mobile app, it is good to know the difference between these. While you can access both via your mobile device, a responsive website is quite like any other site comprising of browser-based-HTML-pages that are interconnected and can be accessed online using any device with internet connectivity. Some of the obvious characteristics of mobile responsive website is that the design is made such that it can fit the small display of handheld mobile devices. Responsive designs are behind the mobile friendly websites that can be scaled to any device size – including desktop, handheld phones, and tablets. Responsive websites, just like other websites, can display images, video, text, and other content. With a mobile responsive website, features like “location based mapping” and “click to call” become easily accessible.
Mobile apps, on the other hand, are designed to be downloaded, installed, and used on mobile devices instead of being rendered (on mobile devices) within a web browser. Users can get these apps from app stores. You can hire mobile app developers for creating your mobile app that runs on iOS, Android, Windows, and other platforms and OS.
Many entrepreneurs hire iOS developers for iPhone app development and Android developers for Android app development. If you are also planning to hire Android app developers or iOS developers to develop mobile apps for your business, you should first understand what exactly would you require in your mobile app and how is it going to be different from a responsive website?
As already discussed-above, an app cannot run on your mobile unless you have downloaded it. The app pulls data and content from the web just like a website does or it can download the content for use even when there is no internet connection.
Ultimately, it is your end goal that will help you decide whether a responsive website is what you need or is it a mobile app that you should get? Hiring a website or mobile application development company will help you move further in this direction. For example, if you want to develop a game, you should consider mobile app development but if you want to deliver other content that is mobile friendly, you may consider having a responsive website. For many goals, you may need both. Let’s take the example of an online food delivery store. You can target your potential market better with both an app and a mobile friendly website designed to help your customers place an order.
Your IT development company will help you decide better in this regard considering factors like your budget, specifications, online presence needs, etc. For some online business goals, an app is the most viable solution while other goals can be achieved with the help of just a responsive website that is accessible through a web browser on the mobile, desktop, and other internet-connected devices.
Responsive website design has improved drastically over the past few years. Now it is immensely easy to build websites that run smoothly on desktops as well as tablets, phones, and other mobile devices. Despite all the amazing features a responsive website has to offer, it can never replace the immense convenience for the buyers (customers) and sellers (businesses) that a mobile app offers.
On the button, having a website as well as an app can be a good idea (provided that you have the budget and willingness to spend) for enhancing your web presence and achieve your business goals. It can be highly beneficial to have both – a website and an app and you don’t really need to choose one.
Before you hire dedicated developers for your mobile app or responsive website design, let’s take a look at some of the merits and demerits of mobile &web application developmentand website development for your business.
Compared to Android or iPhone app development, website development is cheaper. Furthermore, a website runs on all devices and can be easily liked & shared than an app. People looking for mobile website can find it easily online. If you look at it from your business perspective, creating and updating a website is relatively easy as well. There is no need to have upgraded or different versions of your responsive website for Android, iOS, Windows, etc.
While finding a mobile app has also become easier now with app stores allowing you to search them directly using certain words (keywords), app store optimization may require additional budget if you want your app to be found by your potential users. Creating an app is quite a time consuming job compared to a website and you will have to hire iPhone or Android app development experts for your project. There must be a foolproof app development strategy in place to help you better engage your targeted audiences.
Connect with a website development company to discuss your web development services’needs.
The biggest advantage of having a mobile app is that you can reach out to more customers, especially the millennials who are almost always using their mobile phones for shopping, chatting, video streaming and what not! The app has the potential of attracting more customers and generating great sales than a website. Most of the customers place their orders online using a mobile app rather than a website due to the utter convenience associated with it. With a mobile app, you can ensure great user experience and boost your sales through in-app notifications, new product alerts, push notifications, etc. With a mobile app, building a great relationship with customers is easy and add more loyal customers to your business.
You can hire a mobile or web development company for your app or responsive website development needs.
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