Mobile app or mobile site - which is best for your brand? (Topic)

The proliferation of mobile devices has dramatically and forever changed the online landscape. According to Smart Insights, US users search 70% of the time on mobile platforms and spend 87 hours surfing the web using smartphones every month. And no matter how you feel about the States, they are the trendsetters, including in the design of sites and applications

Smart marketers already know this, and many are trying to turn this knowledge into action. There are many ways to present mobile content, and determining which one is right for a particular business can be daunting. In this article, we'll explore three approaches to mobile design and when to use them.

Responsive Design

Since Google released a major mobile update called "Mobilegeddon", most marketers have turned to responsive websites. On a responsive site, content resizes to fit any screen size.

A user, both a PC and a smartphone user, being on the same page will see the same content, but this content will be adapted for clear and correct display on their device.

This approach was usually aimed at PC users first and on phones cut off some of the content that looked bad or not completely on the phone.

Since the pages viewed use the same address, there was no loss of address links when using the pages in a mobile browser.

Responsive design is suitable for many websites, including blogs, online stores, and company business pages.

It's also good for brands that need a mobile presence but can't invest in mobile design.

Mobile responsive designs have some drawbacks. Chief among them is that they are not always the best way to display mobile-specific content types. This, in turn, often leads to the fact that some pages are not available on mobile devices.

Mobile first.

Since the share of traffic from phones is already quite large, it is important that these people have a user-friendly interface and can use your site without restrictions.

If you want to make your site convenient for phones, you will have to abandon background images, bundles of complex scripts and a large number of images. And it is imperative to make sure that the pictures weigh as little as possible. Also, an indisputable advantage of focusing the design on smartphones is that your site will be able to take higher positions in the search results.

Mobile application

You have a lot of money and you want the user to get the most out of your site on their smartphone? Great, then the mobile app is your choice.

It is in the application that the user will be able to interact with your resource in the ecosystem of his device with maximum comfort. But as always, it has its own peculiarities.

First of all, you have to make at least 2 applications for iOS and Android, respectively. Which makes the price of this solution quite palpable compared to the first two methods.

Secondly, to start using the application, the user will need to download it from the application store and install it on the device. This may scare off some users.

Third, you will need to constantly invest in maintaining the application, identifying bugs and making updates. This makes the already high price too unaffordable for small companies.

One of the main motivations for developing an application is to have offline interactions with users as a business goal. Apps make a lot more sense for music platforms, interactive games, and other things that a person might want to use all the time. Apps are also better suited for unique features and projects that require access to the user's camera.

In practice, the correct approach will vary depending on the needs and budget of the company. Before deciding which approach to take, marketers must have clear business goals and priorities.

Is your goal to find a way to interact with thousands of subscribers offline? Then create an app!

Small budget, but are the majority of your customers still searching from a mobile device? Create a mobile site that is also suitable for personal computer users.

The target audience, goals and intentions of the user dictate the design. Just because the budget allows you to develop an application does not mean that the target audience will want to use it. Do your research and avoid creating something that no one wants to download. This saves time and money in the long run.

The Topic of Article: Mobile app or mobile site - which is best for your brand?.
Author: Jake Pinkman