The mobile market is a booming industry, and it’s certainly a space you’ll want your business or company to be showcased, but as a business that runs outside of this market, would it be better to create a mobile website, or develop an application for the app store?
While having an app in the app store can help you to reach out to people that may not yet know about you, and it gives you a chance to showcase your business to new potential customers, the truth is that the app markets are so packed that most of your downloads will come from those who find out about your business outside of the app market.
Because of this, there are plenty of reasons why choosing a mobile website over a mobile application or app may be the best option available to you.
Firstly, having a mobile website will mean you can directly link any interested customers or visitors to your business information- they don’t need to spend time downloading an app, and they can access the website on both mobile and desktop devices.
On top of this, if your business is spread through word of mouth, having a quickly accessible mobile website will mean a potential customer can have a look at your website whenever they have a couple of minutes to spare. They don’t need to go through the app store to find your application, and they don’t need to download it- instead they can just open up their browser and type in your address and they’ll already have everything they need to know about your business right in front of them.
While mobile applications have the ability to showcase more than simple HTML webpages, as a business there really isn’t that much an application can do for your business that a website can’t. If you’re looking to develop games or utilities for smartphones, applications are certainly the way to go, but if you are simply looking to get your name into the mobile space, a mobile website is a much cleaner and more convenient way to go for both you and your customers.
You also don’t need to worry about cross-compatibility- the mobile industry is fairly young and everyone wants to get involved, and because of this there are way too many mobile operating systems to cater for. By having a simple mobile webpage, you’re allowing all mobile platforms access to your business online without having to waste time and money developing for multiple platforms.