Why Mobile Apps Are Better Than Websites?

Why are businesses today facing this dilemma between building a mobile app or building a mobile website? The migration from desktop to mobile has happened already, and more people are getting online through their mobile devices than ever. This kind of swift consumer behavior change has left many companies rethinking their digital strategy and wanting to create a mobile-friendly website or invest in developing a mobile application. Both are quite impressive, but for several reasons, mobile applications have emerged to be the better option. This article explores why mobile apps are much better than websites, and it analyzes essential issues, such as personalization, usability, and conversion optimization.

Better Personalization for Users

A very big plus of mobile apps is the opportunity they have to provide specific experiences to every user. Mobile app personalization extends far beyond simply keeping track of a user's name or past preferences; it also includes delivering content based on the user's location, behavior, and recent activities. Applications can thus record user interactions and give appropriate recommendations, making this experience more engaging and specific to their needs. Mobile sites are not as personalizable in that capabilities are somewhat constrained by browsers and cookies. Sites can remember user preferences up to a point, but there's no real depth to it and isn't as intuitive or instinctive as mobile apps would be. Furthermore, mobile apps could employ A/B testing to make those very customizable experiences even more compelling for its users, something websites could not do without this mobile app development.

Notifications and Engagement

Push notifications is one of the primary disadvantages of websites, even of mobile-optimized ones-that is, they don't send real-time notification directly to the user's pocket. It is where the power of mobile apps truly shines. A mobile application can give two types of notifications-push notifications and in-app notifications and these are effective without being too intrusive for driving user engagement. Businesses are allowed to have direct communication with users even when they're not actively using the app by sending push notifications.

For instance, in an e-commerce application, if the app reminds a user that there is an abandoned cart or that a discount is still available for a short period, then real-time prompts enhance engagement and produce conversions many times over. Mobile websites have to rely on communication through email or SMS; however, email and SMS have significantly lower engagement rates compared with app notifications. Mobile apps allow direct notifications to the user, which makes them a handy aid for business operations to maintain customer engagement over time.

Utilize the Capabilities of Mobile Devices

Mobile apps would have all native features of a device, from camera and GPS to contact list and accelerometer and even voice commands. That can easily be fused into the mobile applications to enhance user-friendliness with minimal effort needed. For example, banking apps could allow the users to capture and upload documents from their mobile device directly through the app by allowing access to their phone's camera.

Whereas mobile websites can also apply some of these functionalities, they are much more limited in their scope and typically have to face problems connected with privacy. Apps can use these functionalities in a safe way to provide more comfort to users in general. This feature makes mobile apps particularly valuable for companies that have to offer complex functionalities, like reservation systems or shopping apps, or health monitors.

Offline Functionality

Moreover, an important difference between mobile web sites and mobile applications is the ability to be used when offline. While mobile web sites mostly function and provide functionalities only when internet connection exists for most of the functionalities, apps can provide access to content and functionalities when not connected to the internet; albeit limited. For example, a news app can download articles so that users can read them later when the internet may not be available. Alternatively, consumers may download songs using a music streaming app that they can listen later when the internet may not be accessible.

With websites, caching helps store some static content offline in the local browser memory; however, the functionality is much more limited than mobile apps. This will also provide the users with a much better experience in terms of user engagement because such functionality enables them to use apps even without Internet while improving their overall stay in the app.

More Design Flexibility

Since mobile apps allow developers and designers to be a lot more creative with interactivity and user-friendliness compared to mobile websites, they are naturally constrained by the limitations of a browser. Websites are inherently bound by the limitations of a browser, as even something as simple as the back button, refresh button, and navigation bar may not be possible there. A mobile app is particularly designed to utilize gestures like swiping, pinching, tapping, and dragging to make the user experience much more intuitive and interesting.

For example, in numerous eCommerce apps, the user can browse through product images or drag items into a shopping cart for much smoother interaction. These features can hardly be attained by a mobile website that needs to operate within the constraints of the browser.

New Branding Opportunities

A mobile application is a new platform by which businesses can innovate the experience around branding for the user. Since the mobile app is an independent product, the apps do not need to adhere to the company's website branding standards, and this can serve as an opportunity for businesses to try on some new design concepts, logos, or colors that may resonate better with mobile users.

The new branding can also be customized for different user segments, which in turn customizes apps to be even more personalized. And more and more apps give users an ability to customize the look of the app based on personal tastes, thus further amplifying the level of personalization. Such flexibility in branding is very hard to achieve through mobile websites, where consistency in the style has to be maintained for the brand recognition.

More Engaged Users and Time Spent

It is a well-known fact that users spend considerable time in mobile applications than they do in websites. Studies prove that in their mobile, people spend 88% of their time in-app and only 12% of the time in mobile websites. This statistic alone should clear the reasons for having a mobile app for businesses that want to keep users engaged for longer periods of time.

That is because, of course, mobile applications are an experience in itself. They will feature push notifications, offline access, and streamline seamlessly into functions of a device, which simply can't be a reason to refuse using it. Mobile websites are less engaging for opposite reasons: there are slower load times and limited functionality.

Conversion Optimization

Mobile applications have a higher chance of conversion than mobile websites as they will ensure the right messages get passed to users through proper recommendations, smooth checkout processes, and other notifications that count for the targeted audience. Mobile applications can also reach both ToFu and BoFu users.

For instance, the fitness app can use free content and trials that later become paying BoFus through premium feature unlocks, whereas eCommerce apps may offer discounts with reminders to their users, making this transition more convenient from a mobile website.

Continued Brand Reach

Mobile applications continue to promote the brand even when they are not in use because the icon appears on the device of the user. The icon on the screen of the user constantly serves as a reminder of the brand at hand. Such indirect forms of advertising would simply not be possible with mobile websites since the user would have to seek out the website in order to interact with the brand itself.

This consistent brand presence may unconsciously sway the usage behavior and make them visit or buy something. With a higher frequency of viewing the application icon, the user will eventually start interacting more with the application and thereby staying connected to the brand.

It performs faster

However, above all, mobile apps always perform much faster than a mobile website. The reason behind is that data of the app is stored locally. For instance, when any data retrieval of the application is required, it proves to be really quicker and efficient compared to site fetching contents from a server which a website does. This ultimately provides a smoother and faster user experience, which becomes quite important for businesses requiring speed transactions or processing vast data volumes.

Moreover, mobile applications utilize frameworks that are slightly faster than the JavaScript code that is generally written for the web. This allows a much more complicated function to be executed in much shorter time intervals, further upgrading the performance of an application and contributing toward a more enjoyable user experience.

Final Words

Although mobile websites have advantages of their own, mobile apps unquestionably offer a more tailored, interesting, and user-friendly experience. Whether it is in leveraging particular features of the device or in sending timely notifications or offline access, mobile apps significantly outdo websites in almost every aspect. Hence, if businesses want to be able to interact with their potential customers more regularly, generate the desired conversions, and deliver better experiences, then a mobile app is their future.