Table of Contents
What is a Website?
Benefits of Websites For Businesses
What is a Mobile App?
Benefits of Mobile Apps for Businesses
Websites vs. Mobile Apps
From time-to-time, we have been asked to explain the difference between a website and a mobile app. While both serve as a means by which users can easily access digital information, products, services and entertainment, their fundamental architecture, user experience and purpose differ significantly.
What is a Website?
In a nutshell, a website is a group of “pages” containing information, that can be accessed by visiting its URL via a web browser, from a variety of devices (computer, smart phone, tablet, smart TV), on the World Wide Web (WWW). In addition to directly accessing a website via its URL typed into a web browser, websites can also be found via a search engine such as Google. For example, in Google, you can search for “web design Scottsdale” and be shown a list of results within the SERPs, that consist of all websites which are relevant to that search query. Alternatively, you could also search for a specific web design company by name (if you do not know its URL), such as “Prominent Web Design”, and the website for Prominent Web Design should be among the top, if not the first, result in the SERPs.
Benefits of Websites For Businesses
Accessibility and Reach
Websites can be accessed from anywhere in the world, from anyone with an internet connection to the World Wide Web using a device with a web browser. Thus, with a website, you reach potential customers from just about anywhere on earth.
Ease of Update & Maintenance
On the best characteristics of a website is that changes to it can be made and published, quickly and easily. For example, if you operate an online clothing store, you can update products, pricing and any other information via a Content Management System (CMS), at any time and publish it so that the public at large, can view those changes almost immediately.
Cost-Effectiveness
Other than the initial cost of development, the ongoing costs of operating a website, which includes hosting and domain registration renewal fees, are considered to be quite affordable for most businesses. As such, this makes websites a cost-effective way to market a business. Additionally, websites generally do not require constant human management to run it. As long as you have hosting and a domain in place, your website can run 24/7 without having to pay a person to babysit it, day-in and day-out.
More Sales
A website can help to generate more sales because it enables you to sell your goods or services 24/7. For example, if you operate an online store, your website can literally facilitate sales at any time of day or night, every day, even while you are sleeping, and on holidays. That means you do not need to limit the hours during which you can sell, like when you operate a brick-and-mortar store.
What is a Mobile App?
A mobile app is a specialized software program built to run on a mobile device such a smartphone or tablet. These apps can be downloaded and installed to your mobile devices from app stores, including the Apple App Store and Google Play. Mobile apps make it possible to facilitate a variety of tasks necessary to access information for industries such as entertainment, financial, travel/lifestyle and healthcare.
Native apps are those that developers often build for a specific platform such iPhone or Android.
Benefits of Mobile Apps for Businesses
Improved User Engagement
Mobile apps can improve user engagement as they facilitate direct, real-time communication with customers via personalized features that include push notifications.
Additional Marketing Channel
Mobile apps provide yet another way to directly and effectively market products and services to customers.
Competitive Advantage
Offering a mobile app to your customers can help make your business stand out from competitors who do not offer such technology.
Websites vs. Mobile Apps
Accessibility and User Interaction
Websites enable access to anyone from any device via a web browser and internet connection whereas mobile apps need a one-time install to a particular mobile device, from an app store. And in some industries (e.g. financial services), you may be limited in the type of information and/or features you can access through their mobile apps compared to their websites. For example, at Fidelity Investments, currently, you can only enable/disable their “Money Transfer Lockdown” feature through their website and not their mobile app.
Performance and Speed
Native, well-designed mobile apps tend to run quicker because they are designed for a specific mobile operating system and enables them to have direct access a mobile device’s hardware.
Building Process and Tools
Websites use simple building blocks that include HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Mobile apps still require more work when developers build them for both iOS and Android, even when they utilize cross-platform frameworks like React Native or Flutter to help save time.
Cost and Maintenance
Small business websites generally cost less to develop than mobile apps. A standard custom website may start at less than $5,000.
Mobile apps usually cost much more up front. Development of a mobile app can easily run up to $50,000 or more, plus app store fees. Testing on real devices adds expense. Additional costs arise when releasing new versions of a mobile app for each OS update.
Expectations
Most consumers probably do not expect every business to have a mobile app, but they likely expect all businesses to have a website, which can be easily viewed from a mobile device (mobile friendly). Thus, it is my opinion that all businesses need to have a website, but not all businesses need to have a mobile app.
Whether or not a particular business should have a mobile app built for it depends on the need and funds available to pay for its development.
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