Nowadays, it is clear that businesses cannot successfully exist without a website or mobile application. Mobile applications more often than others are used by delivery services, fast food chains, real estate agencies, construction and repair organizations, etc. Sometimes online stores also decide to create personalized gadget programs, although this is not always the case. In this article, we will mainly focus on the reasons to create an app for a blog, which is a unique niche. Let’s find out what are the advantages and disadvantages of mobile applications used by blog sites and why many of them do not need to spend money on their purchase.
When Should You Create a Mobile App for Your Blog?
One of the most important disadvantages of mobile applications is that they are not needed for one-time users. But if your blog shows a high percentage of return, creating a user-friendly application will only benefit your platform. With a well-organized advertising campaign, most of your potential customers will install the program and use it to the fullest.
Your target audience is users who visit your resource regularly for a variety of reasons. They do not always buy a subscription but are interested in new topics, loyalty programs, and interesting content. If there are a lot of such clients, you can take a risk and spend money on creating a mobile application, and maybe one of them will buy a subscription more often. To create a successful app from scratch, we recommend contacting the appkong.com team.
Finally, if your online store has a lot of traffic, then it is not so dangerous to redirect it to another channel. With a rate of ten thousand people a day or more, you can try to get some customers interested in installing the program. To prevent the attempt from being unsuccessful, you need to professionally promote the app and provide certain bonus points to those who decided to download it. Now, let’s pay attention to the pros and cons of creating an app for your blog from the commercial point of view.
Cons of Creating Mobile Apps
Let’s deal with the main disadvantages, due to which the use of mobile applications is generally considered a bad investment.
1) One-time users don’t need them
The bulk of your customers are people who have visited your blog just once. Maybe after a while, they will come back to you to read something else, or they may not come back at all. In any case, they will definitely not waste time taking up the memory of their gadget in search of your program and its installation. In other words, having such users, you risk losing your money spent on making the application because they will not pay off.
2) App development is rather expensive
A good mobile program that customers can install should have many special features. The main ones are:
- Synchronization with the catalog of articles presented in the blog;
- Preservation of your unique style;
- Ability to quickly subscribe;
- Ability to pay for the subscription with a bank card;
- The regular creation of push messages;
As you may guess, creating such a program is not cheap. Don’t trust low-cost advertising. For a penny, you can buy only the simplest program, and if you add some crucial and necessary features, the price of the service will increase many times over.
3) You need to invest in both iOS and Android development at once
Given that the introduction of a mobile application will be rational only when it is in both Google Play and the App Store, it will require more resources from you. These conflicting operating systems for gadgets are very popular today. And by ordering a mobile version of your blog for just one of them, you risk losing most of your potential customers. The lack of an application for the competing operating system will negatively affect your reputation. Besides, it would be good to make a third version of the program for gadgets on the Windows Phone operating system.
Pros of Creating Mobile Apps
Alongside disadvantages, mobile applications also have a list of positive aspects:
1) Your gadget is always with clients
A computer is a device that may not be around at the right time. Smartphones are in people’s pockets anytime, anywhere. Even when the computer is turned off, a favorite gadget will come to the rescue. In this regard, the mobile application is much more accessible to people than the web portal.
2) You can send push notifications
If modern online blogs order the creation of mobile applications, it is necessary to enable the functionality of push messages, which help to interest visitors, remind them about your blog, and inform them about profitable promotions, and bonus programs. At the same time, we should not ignore the fact that some users may be annoyed by frequent push messages. And in order not to receive them anymore, a person simply removes the application.
3) Simplified payments
If you have provided the ability to pay for the subscription with a bank card, it will significantly speed up and simplify the payment procedure. This is especially important for bank cards, which require sending a password via SMS: the buyer does not need to remember the secret code and enter it somewhere, for example, on the website.
4) Convenience and efficiency
Created at a decent level, the mobile application will greatly simplify the registration and payment procedures. The customer only needs to open the program on his gadget, click on the subscription type and make a payment. Most often, information about the content is presented in a simpler form, which pleases readers who prefer simplicity.
It follows from the above that the introduction of a mobile application is a risky business, especially for beginner bloggers, who do not yet have a large target audience, solid traffic, and high subscription rates. To avoid risk, you can develop an adaptive web design for your Internet resource, which will be clear and convenient even when you browse the pages of a blog from a smartphone. However, if you have at least 10k visitors daily, it is worth considering the creation of a dedicated mobile app.
