Mobile App v/s Website: Which Works Best For Your Startup?

13.8 Billion years ago, the Big Bang created the stars, the planet, and the galaxy. Compared to the lifespan of the universe, our lives begin and end in a single day, with a single choice. In that narrative, each choice we make today has thousand underlying facts that are determinant to all our future histories. When one establishes a business, they establish something that they are looking forward to alleviating their state of being. In that paradigm, making the right decision is the initial decision. But one cannot make decisions based on an ever-changing element, and in the world that we live in, technology is the game changer and the most constantly changing element. It is always on the move; an idea, an innovation, and evolution are always lurking somewhere. Thus, if you wish not just to survive but thrive, you always have to have a grasp of technology and time. Today, when everyone is acutely invested in the world of make-belief, every business entity needs to have a robust presence on the digital scape, either through a website or through a mobile app.

Why go for a mobile app?

As per reports, there are 5.31 billion unique mobile phone users globally, and around 95 million users have joined in the last 12 months only. What does that say? The pandemic has pushed people to live indoors. Hence their view of the world, business, and commerce exist on their screens and fingers. With cheap internet, network accessibility, and affordability of mobile phones, it is possible for everyone to transact from the convenience of their homes. Therefore, in the coming era, it is safe to assume that people are inclining more towards an android mobile than laptops and PCs, making mobile app development crucial today.

Does that mean the web is dead?

It isn’t because having a mobile phone does not mean installing applications endlessly. It is like with the mobile application, you hit the market faster, but a website takes you farther. But does that mean you have to invest in both places? The answer is no since it is not feasible for all, especially startups.

In this blog, we will answer one fair question every business owner ponders at some point in time when developing their virtual identity: what works best for a startup, mobile app, or website?

Before jogging down that journey, consider some essential aspects to clear the inherent burden of proof.

Importance of Mobile Application for a Startup:-

If the user is the king, then is there a better way to provide a user a more personalized experience than being able to serve them 24/7 at their fingertips? Furthermore, a mobile application offers the following leverage:

Customer value

It is undisputed that business is about how well you engage with your customers when they come across you for products and services. In that pursuit, you make several strategies like increasing interaction to better promote sales. However, a customer will be retained only when you provide specific value to them, distinguishing you from others. A mobile application helps you in this aspect vigorously.

Brand building

Mobile applications enhance communication by offering awareness and recognition of your brand to the customers, something that refrigerator magnets, calendars, posters, and billboards failed to do a few years back. It facilitates regular interaction with the target market that germinates trust and belief between you and your clients. Therefore, mobile applications strengthen and educate the customer about your brand.

Customer connection

Customer service has grown beyond the brick mortar shop, beyond the four walls of head offices, and today it is boundless. On the digital or virtual scape, as you wish to call it, there are no limitations of accessibility. As we said, the world is now under your fingertips. Therefore you must offer customer service a few clicks away. The mobile application interface then seamlessly serves the customer given their products and services. The mobile application ensures that you are with your customer all the time.

Profitability 

We have said this a hundred times, and we know you have heard it a thousand times. The simpler you make availing your services for the customer, the more they will opt you over everyone. It is the game of user experience. It encourages and excites your customers about your product or service, which builds brand loyalty and profit for you in the long run.

Importance of Website for a Startup:-

Adds Credibility

Having a website increases the credibility of your company. It helps businesses, especially in such an industry where there are several businesses in the market offering similar products and services. Having an attractive and professional website is the best way to stand out from the crowd. A website is effective when you can communicate quality and relevant information with your customers, and customers do relate it with your legitimacy because, for them, that is the face of your entity.

Generate Leads and Multiply Sales

A website helps your business generate more leads and increase sales significantly. When people search for some products or services that you deal with, they try to gather more information about those particular products, services, and you. Furthermore, they get the contact details of the business from the website, giving you a growth opportunity and a chance to increase your sales. Although developing and maintaining websites incurs an expense when used appropriately, they have a positive ROI.

Attract Organic Traffic

If you have developed your website and used various SEO (search engine optimization) techniques, your website will rank well on Google SERP.

When you rank high on SERP, you get more people to view you when they search for some product and service you offer and when they visit your website, which increases your customer base.

Hence, both mobile apps and websites have something or the other to offer your startup. Thus, which one you should make first depends entirely on the requirements of your business and the type of customers you wish to target. Moreover, to make a sound decision, you must consider the following determinants:-

How to decide which works best for your startup, mobile app, or website?

Budget

If you have started your company with a limited budget, it won’t make sense to start developing a mobile app because the UI of an app has to be adjusted for each platform like Android, Windows, and iOS App. Hence, an app-only business model may have issues reaching out to consumers. To tackle that, you will need to spend more on developing different apps for different platforms, incurring costs per operating system.

However, with a website, you will benefit from displaying all the content on one interface. In addition to that, updating the content requires less work on a website. A web development company in UAE will suggest you make the website before the application as it is a cheaper option.

Product line

Understanding the needs of your audience and the target market first is the key for any business. Then you can employ the best web development frameworks backend and frontend to come up with a website that serves your customers the way you wish to.

For example, ACAI Café, a Singaporean food chain, wanted to build a unique app specifically designed for customers to quickly obtain vouchers and redeem them later at any ACAI outlets or third-party merchants. Therefore, an app was built with a user-friendly interface to scan QR codes in their app and a secured wallet to show customers’ point balance and transactions.

Similarly, Travel Hub is a shared space for travelers and explorers to interact via Articles and messages. To create a hub for passionate travelers to share their travel experiences, it developed a website as a unique platform where travelers around the globe could register themselves and share their travel experiences. In addition, it created an attractive UI for grabbing the attention of new users and built a straightforward interface.

Tools required

If you are introducing something complex which needs you to show data reports and analysis, then choose the website because using complex reporting, calculations, numbers, etc., on mobile is tedious. You can tackle that by launching native apps to cater to all platforms multiplying the cost. A website, however, offers an optimized user interface that displays all the relevant data.

Marketing plan

If your business is about investments and elements of financial markets, a mobile app is preferable, and mobile app development companies in Dubai recommend it, especially from a marketing point of view. From the view of a startup, in the beginning, they have limited resources to work with, in which case, an app may make for an obvious choice to help reach out to a specific section of consumers. Later, as the business grows, you can provide additional platforms.

However, it cannot be ignored that when a company opts to go app-only, it risks missing out on a vast market of potential customers, mainly if its app does not happen to feature among the top four or five apps of choice for a user.

User Friendly

While websites have a navigational user interface, mobile apps have an interactive user interface to succeed. For instance, if you are a gaming company, the mobile app has a better mechanical phenomenon. Hence, it will be better for a game development company than a website. But for other industries, a responsive web design approach addresses and resolves many of the usability issues for a mobile-friendly website.

Usage

If your service is such that you expect your users to check into your platform a few times a day, it makes more sense to start with an app since it is more convenient, faster to access, and has the option of notifications for the users to keep updated. First, however, you must ensure that your app is not slow to launch or perform the desired actions, or else it will become a barrier that stops people from using your app.

Speed

Literally, no one has the time to explore over a slow platform for their needs in this fast-paced world. The longer your website takes to load, the more your search engine ranking, traffic, return on investment, and search engine marketing gets compromised. This is piloted by Google’s efforts to develop a faster internet based on consumer demand.

On the other hand, if you are targeting customers who would not frequently be accessing, installing a mobile app will be more time-consuming than visiting a website.

Accessible

Examine well for how long a customer needs your services. For example, dictionaries provide accessibility to know words even where an internet connection is unavailable. Therefore, users can use it whenever they need it, irrespective of their location. For offline accessibility, you need to build parallel, location-dependent apps. Therefore, apps are better for offline mode of navigation than a website.

Update

Do you think your app or your data will need updating frequently? Would you need to change the content on your business platform often? If yes, you should get your website developed first. Then, later, once the business has been streamlined, you can invest in apps.

This is why experts recommend most of the banks, news, and hospitality industry a website since one can easily update through a website, and the users will not be forced to update the whole application. All the changes will be done from your end on your website.

Analytical tools

Search Engine Optimization is possible only for websites, and to tap users or the wider population, one always has to keep studying the latest SEO trends. If you choose a mobile app, you can’t keep updated on the constant revision of your website. Moreover, it would mean you are missing a big chunk of search engine traffic since almost half of the retailer website traffic comes from organic search.

Meanwhile, if you have a business that depends on consumers’ searches and reviews on app stores, then mobile apps can be an advantage.

The conclusion is that there are many points that you must analyze carefully before you select whether you should build an app or website first. Unless you are a mobile-based startup, developing a website first is the way to go, instead of spending some significant part of your budget developing an app. You can, instead, try on making your website more user-friendly or pay extra to make it rank prominently on the search engines.