7 Facts About Progressive Web Apps that Set it Apart

Speed and convenience are critical to internet users in today’s busy world. As per Google Page Speed Insights, 53% of mobile users would abandon an app if it took more than 3 seconds to load! Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are the ideal solution because they provide an app-like experience on your web browser without having to download in the first place.

They have become a big fuss in enterprises worldwide with tons of features. In fact, as per Statista, 28% of eCommerce enterprises in North America & Europe are considering implementing progressive web apps.

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Source: Statista – PWAs Implementation 

Progressive web apps are beginning to become more and more popular among consumers and businesses, primarily due to their wide range of features that set them apart from regular web apps.

Here are 7 Astonishing Facts about Progressive Web Apps:

• Offline accessibility makes it a more reliable and faster
• Lighter than native applications
• It offers push notifications
• Higher User Engagement
• Lowers development time & cost
• Uninhibited speed performance
• Supports SEO Friendly Practices

Let’s explore how these facts benefit a business enterprise in detail:

#1: Offline Capabilities Provides Native App Like Performance

Offline accessibility has been a game-changer to web apps as it allows users to access information even when they don’t have an internet connection. It is beneficial for users who travel frequently or live in areas with poor connectivity.

For example, a travel-based application can provide tons of features and content without an internet connection.

The same holds for any other business enterprise that requires mobile applications but doesn’t want to spend money on developing native applications for each platform (iOS and Android).

Note: PWAs are also lighter than native applications since they only require HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files instead of having a dedicated app store page.

#2: Lighter than Native Applications

Native applications are heavier than PWAs, as they take longer to download over smartphone devices. If you want users to download and install your app from an app store, it’s a problem. PWAs reduce the download size by more than half compared to regular web apps, giving them a better chance of making it onto users’ phones.

What makes PWAs lighter than native applications is their ability to take advantage of service workers. Service workers allow you to store data on your users’ devices, so they can access it without needing an internet connection.

Twitter, Starbucks, Uber, Instagram, and significant players have adopted PWAs due to their light size and expressive performance. So, entrepreneurs and enterprises are automatically attracted to hiring web developers for building PWAs.

#3: Push Notifications Lead to Higher Sales

One of my favorite features of a PWA is that they can take advantage of push notifications, which allow developers to reach users outside of their app. In other words, if you’re checking your phone and notice an update, you can receive information even if you don’t have an app installed or aren’t actively using it at that moment.

It provides enormous benefits for both consumers and businesses alike. For example, Push notifications allow enterprises to reach their customers even when they are not actively using their app. It is a massive benefit for businesses as it increases user engagement, ultimately leading to more sales.

#4: Proven Higher User Engagement 

Companies like Flipkart (a popular ecommerce platform in India) increased re-engagement rates by 40%. Similarly, Alibaba has enhanced its conversion rate by 76% via progressive web apps. 

What makes PWAs engaging are their instant loading, offline capability, and push notifications. It’s also worth mentioning that they can be installed on a device like a native app, which is a big plus for users.

• Easy to Install: Users don’t have to go through complicated installation processes; instead, they can add an icon to their home screen and launch it.
• Highly Accessible: As they are based on open standards like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, PWAs can be accessed by all browsers – including mobile ones and not just Google Chrome.

#5: Lower Development Time & Cost

PWAs require the skill of web developers and not native app developers. Web developers are cheaper to hire than native app developers, saving you money. You can hire web developers in India for as little as $15 per hour, which is a fraction of what you pay for U.S based developers.

PWAs work on any platform, unlike native apps that need to be developed separately for each platform (Android, iOS). Your website will work on all platforms with PWA without any additional cost or development time!

Programmers can update your PWA as often as they want without submitting an update to Apple or Google’s App Store/Play Store. It ensures both lower development & maintenance cost as compared to native apps. 

#6: Uninhibited Speed Performance

Source: Statista – Speed Performance Expectations by Countries

Why it’s so important to be fast, especially on mobile devices, people want their apps to load quickly, even more than they want them to look good or work well. The faster your app loads, the more likely people will use it and keep using it.

If you aren’t sure how fast your app is loading for users, check out Google Analytics and see your average load time across all of your pages.

PWAs aren’t just offline-ready—they’re lightning-fast. PWAs load up to ten times faster than regular web apps and can retain a connection 80% longer due to their lightweight caching capabilities. Washington Post improved its online performance by 88% via progressive web apps. 

#7: PWAs Facilitates SEO Friendly Practices

Whether trying to drive traffic to your mobile app or boost search engine ranking for your site, progressive web apps can help. With a PWA installed on a phone or tablet, Google will have a chance to index it — which means your company can start popping up in local search results and keyword searches much more quickly than with an uninstalled app.

PWAs also include Google-friendly features like AMP technology (think faster load times), making them even more appealing for SEO purposes. Web development companies in India adopt the following strategies to make PWAs SEO friendly:

Runs on HTTP: PWAs are run over secure, encrypted connections to ensure that no one can tamper with or track your users’ requests. 

Specifying Canonical URLs: It’s essential to establish a single canonical URL for each PWA and a human-readable title and description. Notably, Google recommends including your brand name in these fields so that users know what they’re getting when they click on your app’s listing in search results.

Serve Full-Page Caches: When Google indexes your PWA, it will cache a snapshot of each page so that users can access it quickly and easily, even if they’re offline. If you want to be included in search results, you should serve full-page caches instead of partial-page caches, which don’t have your site’s header or footer information.

Effective Redirection: When users click on your PWA in search results, they get redirected to a URL that matches what you’ve specified in your manifest file.

Wrapping Up

If you are thinking of strengthening your online presence, then PWAs are undeniably a commendable choice as they provide you with an opportunity to reach out to more users and thus increase your business’s growth manifolds.

However, for that, you must make use of them in an appropriate manner so that your efforts don’t go in vain. A web development company in India can help you with all that!