What are Progressive Web Apps?
Progressive Web Apps are a technology website that feels like a mobile application only to a user that takes the best features of native apps and combines them with the elements of a website to create a web application. The primary approach of PWA is to provide a user with the experience of application on a website that too across all platforms creating a phenomenal mobile user experience. PWAs are special web applications that are accessed like normal websites but offer many benefits like offline usability, push notifications, and access to device hardware which were previously available only to native apps.
Its features and business benefits provide best practices and useful advice to help one’s business expand with great speed. It clearly makes a great chance for your business to win over mobile users by distinguishing yourself from the competition. By offering a superior digital journey that results in higher engagement, customer satisfaction, and conversion rates. So many services and e-commerce based business hiring App development company to build their PWA websites.
Why do you need PWA for eCommerce?
Smartphones account for over 55% of internet traffic today. The drawback faced with the working of eCommerce apps is a limited loyal consumer base. While mobile apps do not necessarily bring any consumers to the business as some may dislike stuffing their smartphones by downloading bulky apps. But PWAs helped overcome all the drawbacks and successfully drew consumers’ attention becoming a major reason for businesses to develop their PWAs.
Responsive Website Vs Native App vs PWA
| Capabilities | Responsive Website | Native App | PWAs |
| Mobile-friendly | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Installable | No | Yes | Yes |
| SEO Indexed | Yes | No | Yes |
| Offline Mode | No | Yes | Yes |
| Push Notification | No | Yes | Yes |
| GPS enabled | No | Yes | Yes |
Key characteristics of PWA
- PWA provides App-like Experience
Giving a full-screen experience and a look like a native application. Also, progressive web apps have fewer page refreshes.
- Linkable
One of the main characteristics of PWA is linkability as they can easily share or even bookmark the URL and the app can retain or reload its state.
- Discoverable
A PWA is a website with an application-like experience hence it should be easily discoverable in the search engine result. Thus it can be the biggest advantage of PWA over native apps.
- Responsiveness
As it fits all screen sizes and can later provide a fully-fledged progressive user experience.
- Progressive
PWAs are able to harness every attribute of the platform and functions and are able to augment progressively and run devices seamlessly.
- Safe
A progressive web app should be hosted over HTTPS to prevent external threats hampering the website’s performance and to provide an alluring and intimate user experience.
- Easy To Install
Effortlessly the users can install PWA on any device and make it ready for use instantly.
Features and Benefits of PWA on Online Businesses
PWA uses a responsive framework to make the pages adaptive to any device and interactive layouts and visually engaging design, helping to elevate user experience nonchalantly across all platforms. A diverse range of features of PWAs made them responsive. Some benefits of PWA that make it an extremely promising solution:
- Instant loading time
- Offline browsing
- Push notifications
- Ready for app and play store
- Lightweight
It does not fail to deliver. Few of the major benefits and features of PWA:
Benefits
- Work on all platforms
- Adapts device configuration
- Fluent and smooth
- Reduces bounce rate
- Enhances customer outreach
- Increases consumer retention
- Consistency in user experience
- Improves conversion rate
Features
- Responsive Design
- Content Personalization
- Add Icon to Home Screen
- Light and data-friendly PWA
- Interactive Web interface
- Search Friendly PWA
Advantages of PWA over Native Apps
- Functionality of Native Apps
PWA can be considered as an effortless and uninterrupted technology for one’s business and to run on all platforms without depending on heavy browsers.
- Consumes less disk space
PWAs don’t gobble a lot of space on users’ devices as they are hosted on the webserver of the respective website.
- Users don’t have to update
Unlike traditional applications, PWA’s don’t require regular updates.
- Can share PWA by sending URL
Like normal websites or applications URL, users can also share PWAs URLs and share them with fellow users. This can help spread brand awareness too.
- SEO Benefits
One can implement all the SEO tactics and strategies to boost the online presence of progressive web apps in order to receive more sales and conversions.
- Instead of downloading access PWAs
Users don’t have to visit the app store or similar platforms to download a PWA and use it. With access to the URL address, users can visit PWAs as they are websites stored on an Internet server.
How does PWA work? Explaining the Technology
- Single page website
A Single Page Application interacts with the user by dynamically rewriting the page rather than loading an entire new page from the server. The browser will not send a request to load the page fully when the user clicks a link. SPAs use JavaScript to manipulate a page and switch pages.
- Web-app Manifest
It’s a kind of JSON file that tells the browser how your web app should behave when it’s installed on a particular device. It would contain just the basic information about the application and once certain criteria are met, the majority of browsers will automatically suggest to visitors your app.
- Service Workers
Mobile conversion increase, app-like experience, instant page load offline browsing, push notifications, and more experiences are given to the end-users. But you may now think how exactly would services like this be given? The answer to that is service workers are an integral part of PWA. A service worker is a client-side javascript file that is added to the codebase.
We all know how a website works—the codebase is stored on a server, and any person can access it via their browser by typing in the domain name or direct IP address. While the service worker resides between the server and browser, adding a new layer of background functionality to mimic app-like features.
- Compatibility with Browsers
Certain features like push notification and home screen save are supported by modern browsers which are integral to PWA. Some browser firms, such as Chrome, are actually praising Progressive Web Apps! If your website meets the Progressive Web App installability criteria, Chrome will show an install button in the Omnibox indicating that your Progressive Web App can be installed.
Tools and Technologies leveraging PWA development
There are some top nine powerful Progressive Web Apps development technologies that provide a rich advanced tech stack allowing developers to use competing frameworks PWA functionalities, including UI elements, unit tests, pre-built routing, etc providing an intelligent solution.
- Ionic
- AngularJs
- VueJs
- Magento PWA Studio
- Polymer
- Lighthouse
- ScandiPWA
Cost of PWA development based on Development Stages
In PWA development there consist various cases and the PWA development process contains of 5 stages:
- PWA project requirements validation
- Conversion driven design
- Time and cost savings
- Risk awareness
- Product owner synchronization with PWA vendor
The costs of progressive web app development range depending on location. Let’s get a closer look at the stats.
Regional hourly PWA development rates:
- The USA and Canada are the priciest and the PWA development ranges from $60 to $150 per hour
- Australian developers have an hourly rate of $50-120 per hour
- While South-American PWA development rates are $20 to $110
- UK PWA developers – $40 to $160 / hour
- Developers in India – $10-75 followed by $20 an hour being the highest cost in Indonesia.
Latest PWA Trends and Best Practices
We’ve gathered some tips from renowned industry experts to make sure you follow the best practices when designing your PWA- things like,
- Don’t overcomplicate things
- Prioritise Content
- Reduce Friction
- Perceived Performance-Make waiting seamless
- Fonts Keep It Simple
- Think Offline
- Follow Best SEO Practices
- Test the App with Lighthouse
Examples of Top PWA Brands
- Forbes
- Flipkart
- Technodom
- Sportland
- Puma Mexico
- BookMyShow
- Uber
- Alibaba
- Voot
- Ola
Conclusion
Presumably, PWAs have a better user retention rate and also conversion rate than mobile applications because they load faster and are easy to install and use. They consume minimal disk space and are also created to work seamlessly in offline environments. With each passing day, a profound number of organizations are opting for PWA technology as it is cost-effective, simple to use, and works smoothly and swiftly on all screen sizes.
It is crystal-clear that the future is bright for PWA and they are going to dominate the Internet for a long time. Step into a future and make your store a digital paragon that improves performance, boosts engagements, and improves conversions.
