Why You Should Turn Your Website Into a Progressive Web App (PWA)

Benefits of Progressive Web App (PWA) Technology

This year at the Google I/O Festival #io18, we heard a lot about Progressive Web Applications, and we’re not surprised — these web apps have been growing in popularity over the past few years. In fact, this year PWAs are officially working on 6/6.5 browsers including Chrome, Safari, FireFox, Edge, Opera, Samsung Internet, and (sort of) on iOS11. PWAs deliver, on average, an increase of 20% conversion rate to organization’s websites, but that’s not all. We’ve seen other great results from implementing PWAs which includes Editora Globa, who saw a 40% increase in engagement from their PWA, as well as 1–800flowers.com who saw an astonishing 50% higher conversion since launching their PWA.

PWAs allow us to radically improve the user experience on online news websites, as well as other sites, and here’s why, using Google’s own (F.I.R.E.) principal:

Fast — 53% of users abandon sites that take longer than 3 seconds to load

• PWAs are fast because their pages are pre-cached, and can be even faster when combined with AMP technology. This can give publishers a huge advantage — as readers will return to the news website knowing that their content is reliable fast loading.
• PWAs also feel fast to users. This includes things like how long it takes to get useful information on the screen. For example, in Starbucks PWA, they show placeholder boxes before content is properly loaded on to the screen:

Image Source: Google I/O Conference

Integrated — Feel natural to the user and on the users device.

• APIs — Progressive Web Apps launch and behave in the same way other native applications do and also take advantage of the capabilities of the device through the use of APIs. APIs provide positive application integrations and user engagement benefits, including things like Google Pay integration which offers a seamless, and positive payment experience for the end user. This is great for publishers who do not have the resources to create a native application. News websites can simply turn their existing site in to a progressive web app, and save the high cost.
• Installable — It is important that the experience feels natural to the user, which means it must emulate the behaviour of native applications. Progressive web applications are able to be ‘installed’ on to the users home screen, where they can re-access the App via an icon. In the Microsoft App store, users can actually download PWAs, just like a native application.
• Push notifications — PWAs, like native apps are able to deliver push notifications on to the devices screen. Publishers can send mobile push notifications to their readers when new articles are released.

Reliable — PWAs provide a practical and consistent user experience.

• Offline Capability — A key component of PWAs is implementation of the Service Worker API — arguably the most important API today, which has ultimately made it possible for cached offline webpages. This means, if readers are in a poorly networked area they can still read content on the news website.
• Seamless Upgrade — One of the major benefits of PWA is their ability to seamlessly upgrade with no need to re-deploy. This is useful for both the app-developer and the user because it eliminates the need for app updates.
• Seamless Synchronization — Progressive Web Apps are initially developed for mobile, nevertheless they are high-performing on desktops as well. The beauty of PWA is the seamless synchronization of your website content across all devices. For example, Starbucks recently rolled out their own PWA which resulted in the amount of their daily and monthly active users to double. Plus, orders with the PWA have been growing 12% week on week since launch! To their surprise, they found that using the desktop version of the PWA is something that users actually want.

Image Sources: Google I/O Conference

Engaging — PWAs are attractive and easy to use. They provide positive user experience.

• Web Components — Because of a variety of web components available, we are able to design PWAs just like native applications. Various web components available today include: Youtube Videos, Soundcloud, Facebook Comments, Menus, and more — all the features that make your existing website ‘rich’. With our software solution AMPize.me, we have an ever-expanding list of Web Components to help you build your own PWA, which you can see here. PWAs are a great for digital journalists to provide positive reader experience, and get their readers to return back to their site again.

From what we learned @ #Io18, PWA’s are changing the world of web apps. And why on earth would you want to download an app, when the Progressive Web App (mobile or desktop version) is functioning just as well, if not better? The proof is in the pudding, and from what we can see, customers are engaging more with brands that make their web experience better.

If you’re a publisher and would like to discuss implementation of paywalls, or ads with your site in accelerated mobile pages (AMP) while maintaining great usability for readers, please reach out to us at WebTales on www.AMPize.me.