All of us prefer to see the online presence of all the businesses out there. We can barely imagine any business today (be it belonging to any industry) not having a business website. It is considered important to have one for building a sound brand image. Also, for better outreach to your potential customers. However, as more and more people are inclined to use personal mobile phones, the website hit rates are declining. It means that users are more comfortable with using mobile apps than websites.
The main reason behind this inclination is that the interface of mobile apps is more interactive and friendly as compared to the websites which mostly take quite a long time to load. This is exactly why businesses these days are interested in converting their websites to mobile apps. However, this whole conversion process needs to be carefully monitored. There are certain things that you need to take into consideration while doing this. Therefore, this guide will teach you all the steps that you need to perform for converting your website to a mobile app.
Note: If you want to know more about the reasons for having a mobile app for your business, then you can check out this blog.
Decide on your Mobile App Features
First, you should make a list of all the features that you want in your mobile app. Obviously, you would not want to have all those capabilities in your mobile app that your website possesses. It is so because a mobile app is a compact yet highly usable version of your website. Therefore, there must be a primary goal that you want to achieve with the help of your mobile app. If your mobile app is simply an exact replica of your website, then its primary purpose will be killed.
So, you must have to pinpoint all the features that you want to have in your mobile app before proceeding with the conversion of your website. A very important point to note over here is that the interface of mobile apps plays a very crucial role in their popularity as compared to websites. It means that you will have to invest very carefully in your UI frontend developer as he can literally make or break your mobile app.
Choose your Mobile App Development Method
There are four main mobile app development methods that are as follows:
- In-house app development
- Outsourced app development
- Hiring freelancers for app development
- Using a low-code or no-code app builder for app development
Depending on your available resources, you can choose to use any of the methods listed above. The most important factors to consider in this regard are your own mobile app development expertise and the cost you are willing to pay for it. Both these factors will vary according to the way you wish to develop your mobile app. For example, for freelance app development, you will have to hire a UI frontend developer as well as a backend developer. Their compensations will depend strongly on the location in which they are residing.
Plan the Budget for Mobile App Development
After carefully analyzing the features that you need in your mobile app and deciding on a suitable app development method. The next thing that you need to do is to allocate a reasonable budget for it. You can find many online sources for cost estimation using which you can conveniently plan your conversion budget. You just need to provide the features that you expect your mobile app to have along with the chosen app development method. The cost calculator will give you the exact budget estimation. However, while planning your budget, you must keep some money aside for the post-launch maintenance and update of your mobile app.
Test your Mobile App
Once you have successfully converted your website into a mobile app, you need to test it before launching it in the market. For that, you can use any of the manual as well as automated testing techniques available. You can even outsource the QA testing of your app to a highly professional organization like Folium AI. The end goal is just to have a workable mobile app without any errors and bugs before launching it on any of the relevant app stores. This depends on whether you have converted your website into an Android or an iOS app or both.
Launch your Mobile App
If you have followed all the above-mentioned steps correctly, then this step is not at all technical as such. All you have to do is thoroughly go through the mobile app submission guidelines of the respective app store on which you are going to publish your app. You need to ensure that your particular mobile app is complying with all these guidelines. After that, you can simply publish your mobile app to the desired app store for making it available publicly after getting all the approvals.
Post-Launch Maintenance
Once your mobile app has been made available to your target audience, you cannot simply sit back and relax. Rather you need to closely focus on the post-launch maintenance of your mobile app. For that, you should keep an eye on all the upcoming issues. Also, you should fix them instantly before your customers can even notice them. You also need to keep updating your mobile app periodically for it to stand firmly in the market.
Conclusion
If you have still not developed a mobile app for your business rather you are still relying on a business website. Then you should immediately get up and gather your resources to convert your website into a mobile app. This will not only generate more revenues for your business but will also make your business stable. You will be able to reach out to more customers this way. Eventually, you will be able to surpass your competitors.