Information Technology Blog - - Responsive Web Design vs Mobile App: Which is a Better Alternative for Business Growth Nowadays? - Information Technology Blog
If you own a great business which offers the advanced set of services but lacks an online presence, how will the customers know about your existence?
Of course, in this digital era, you can’t think of going for traditional marketing methods to gain recognition in the market and grab the customers’ attention. Now what? What are the other alternatives?
Irrespective of the business size or the industry you are dealing in, every business needs to have a strong online presence for reaching potential customers. For this, you can either build a website, application, or software according to your business services and your target audience.
Businesses that have global customers that have varying needs and requirements, you can develop multiple choices for the- website and an app both. But if you are in the startup stage of your business and have limited resources and budget, you can begin with one and eventually broaden once your business gains popularity in the market.
In this post, we will discuss a mobile app and a responsive web design and analyze which is suitable for your business- of course, we can’t define one of them as better over others because both of them have their own significance and specialties in the industry. However, we’ll discuss the major differences amongst both of them, and further, it all depends on your business i.e. your business requirements, expectations, target audience, and their demographics, to decide which is better for your business.
So, let’s get started!
Understanding Responsive Websites
Firstly, we are going to learn about responsive websites as websites emerged before mobile apps came into existence. A responsive or mobile-friendly website is quite similar to any other website that makes use of HTML pages that are accessed over all the browsers. But the specialty and the only reason that why responsive websites are preferable is that an ordinary website is built for a particular PC version and doesn’t support other devices.
While a responsive website comes up as a one-fits-all version that supports all kinds of devices and presents a perfect view of your website across a smartphone, PC, laptop, tablet, and all other devices. So, you save a lot of time, effort, and costs, while developing a separate view for all other devices.
So, with a responsive website, the users don’t have to struggle while viewing a website on small screens or any other devices. The responsive websites have a special design that is solely based on CSS queries. It enables the web content to easily fit in all sorts of screens- from 17’ laptop screen to a 3’ phone screen.
Google Gives Preference to Responsive Websites
However, some of you might be wondering that is there even a need for a responsive website when you already have a great name in the market and have happy customers? Well, in recent times, every individual owns a smartphone and prefers to carry out everything over a smartphone- from ordering a meal to booking flight tickets, we all are dependent on mobile devices. Now, what if your website misses a mobile version? You are directly out of the race and the users will definitely switch to one of your rivals. At this point, it becomes necessary to invest in a responsive website.
Not only this, in order to get a high Google ranking, but you also needed to have a mobile-friendly website because Google prefers responsive websites over the ordinary ones. So, you can’t afford to lose the online presence in the market and lose potential customers. So that your website is displayed on the first page of Google search results, it again becomes necessary to have a responsive website in recent times.
Other notable specifications of responsive websites include:
A mobile-friendly need downloading or installation, the majority of the websites are free.
With a responsive website, you don’t need to build native apps for all digital devices.
A responsive website is easy to update, support, and fixing bugs. Unlike a mobile application, you don’t need to install a new version for using a website. People can easily experience a renewed product and a responsive website even acts as a budget-friendly approach and is easy to update.
If you wish to find a new customer or wish to present your business online, a responsive website is a right choice.
Understanding Mobile Apps
By now, most of you might be thinking that responsive websites are the perfect solution, and there might be no need for a mobile application. Well, this is not the end of it. From a business perspective, a mobile app is necessary to grow a business in the long run. A mobile application can be installed on a smartphone or a tablet. Mobile applications can be built for numerous operating systems like iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and so on.
Unlike responsive websites, mobile apps work differently and can’t run across all kinds of devices, rather they need to be installed separately on all devices. But they definitely help in delivering a unique user experience. When responsive websites focus on grabbing new customers, mobile applications help in retaining older customers.
However, for a mobile app, you need to invest quite more than a responsive website as you’ll have to build a separate app for different operating systems. You need to decide wisely whether you need to go for iOS, or Android- iOS helps to receive great revenue while Android gives improved results in the app downloads.
Other notable specifications of mobile applications include:
- Unlike a responsive website, mobile applications come up with extra functionalities and features that can’t be performed on a regular responsive website.
- Mobile applications need to be downloaded from a particular app such as Play Store and App Store.
- Mobile apps go the extra mile and offer better security aspects, unlike browsers.
- Apps can be used offline to fetch the required information or download some other content.
- Since the mobile app design is specifically designed for a particular platform, it turns out to be a mobile-friendly alternative.
The Verdict
Responsive websites and mobile apps, both of them have their own set of properties and specialties to choose from. Being a business owner, you must go through both of them and decide which the current need of your business is at the moment. If you have a new business and a limited budget, for now, go for a website; otherwise, you can go for mobile applications.
Invest a good time with your team to discuss your business needs thoroughly and look for an ideal vendor that has expertise in a particular industry. Don’t hurry and settle for any random vendor, rather try multiple vendors, compare all of them, compare the pricing models, and settle for the one that perfectly caters to your business needs.
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