A lot of major companies have stopped relying on their websites to run their business and instead are moving in a more progressive direction for the future – the Progressive Web Application (PWA). It’s essential to understand the importance of PWAs and the significant change they can bring to businesses around the world.

What Are Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)?

Progressive Web Applications are a bridge between traditional websites and mobile apps. PWAs take advantage of the latest technologies to bring the best of websites and mobile apps together. They are websites built to act and feel like mobile apps.

Why should you use PWAs?

Between first contact and user starting to use the app, the app itself loses 20% of its users owing to the intermediate steps that require download and installation. When users find a Progressive Web Application for your business, they can immediately start using it, eliminating the download and installation stages. Users can later be prompted to download and install the app for a full-screen user experience. Overall, a PWA takes advantage of a mobile app’s characteristics to bring improved user retention and performance, without the hassle of maintaining a mobile app with constant hassle and support.

What You Should Know About PWAs?

Progressive Web Applications are very secure:

Google has always favored websites that use HTTPS, instead of HTTP. Cyber threats are a high-priority threat that a lot of developers have to consider while creating a website. Since PWAs work via HTTPS exclusively, the user interaction with the web app is as secure as it can be.

Content made accessible offline:

Progressive Web Applications are here to revolutionize the web experience with a very unique feature: offline access to content. Unlike the normal web experience, PWAs instead provide the option of viewing content offline with a built-in mechanism called service workers. PWA is thus connectivity independent and can work with low-quality internet or no internet.

Higher User Engagement:

Progressive web apps provide users the option to have push notifications without the hassle of having the app on the phone. Every time something new is introduced to the PWA, the users can be sent a notification, which helps them return to the web app.

Web Linkable:

This feature enables the sharing of the web app with anyone directly through the link. It’s an app with a real URL structure and hence, any content within a PWA exists on a link. These links are searchable and show up in search engine results.

High Responsiveness:

The size of the screen is rarely an issue with PWAs. A PWA has the compatibility to work with any browsers and the capability to resize itself to any screen size – whether it’s a desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile phone.

Seamless, Swift and Lightweight:

PWAs reduce the time that it takes for indexing an application and make the app lightweight. Search engines favor smooth, fast and lightweight apps with minimal retention. These attributes also help decrease the bounce rate, which causes the website to rank higher.

Conclusion

Mobile apps have their place in the market. But with the growing use of smartphones and an increased reluctance to install a mobile app, users need something much faster and more effective to connect to your business. Progressive Web Apps deliver a unique experience of combining mobile app capabilities with a website and have many advantages from both a business perspective and a user perspective.

If you want to know more about Progressive Web Apps or get your own PWA built by some of the smartest coding minds, talk to our experts at TechRev.