Nowadays, it is clear that businesses cannot exist successfully without a website or a mobile application. Mobile apps are used more often than others by delivery services, fast food chains, real estate agencies, construction and repair organizations, etc. Sometimes online stores also decide to create custom gadget programs, although this is not always the case. In this article, we will mainly focus on the reasons for creating 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 blogging sites and why many of them do not need to shell out any money for their purchase.
When to create a mobile application for your blog?
One of the most significant disadvantages of mobile apps is that they are not necessary for occasional users. But if your blog has a high return percentage, creating a user-friendly app 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 are users who regularly visit your resource for various reasons. They don’t always buy a subscription but are interested in new topics, loyalty programs and interesting content. If there are a lot of such customers, 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 application from scratch, we recommend that you contact 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 per day or more, you can try to interest some customers in installing the program. To prevent the attempt from failing, you need to promote the application professionally and provide certain bonus points to those who decided to download it. Now let’s take a look at the pros and cons of creating an app for your blog from a business perspective.
Disadvantages of building mobile apps
Let’s move on to the main drawbacks, due to which the use of mobile applications is generally considered a bad investment.
1) One-time users don’t need it
The majority of your customers are people who have only visited your blog once. Maybe after a while they’ll come back to you to read something else, or maybe they won’t come back at all. In any case, they will certainly not waste time occupying the memory of their gadget in search of your program and its installation. In other words, by having such users, you risk wasting your money spent on making the app because they won’t 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;
- Possibility to subscribe quickly;
- Possibility to pay the subscription by credit card;
- The regular creation of push messages;
As you can guess, creating such a program is not cheap. Don’t rely on cheap advertising. For a penny you can buy only the simplest program, and if you add crucial and necessary functionality, the price of the service will increase several times.
3) You need to invest in both iOS and Android development
Since introducing a mobile app will only be rational when it is in both Google Play and 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. Also, it would be good to make a third version of the program for gadgets on the Windows Phone operating system.
Benefits of building mobile apps
Apart from the disadvantages, mobile apps also have a list of positive aspects:
1) Your gadget is always with customers
A computer is a device that may not be there 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 app 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 activate the functionality of push messages, which help to interest visitors, remind them of 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 to stop receiving them, a person simply deletes the application.
3) Simplified payments
If you have provided the ability to pay for the subscription with a bank card, this will significantly speed up and simplify the payment procedure. This is especially important for bank cards, which require sending a password by 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 just has to open the program on his gadget, click on the type of subscription and make a payment. More often than not, content information is presented in a simpler form, which appeals to readers who prefer simplicity.
It follows from the above that introducing 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 any risks, you can develop a responsive web design for your Internet resource, which will be clear and convenient even when browsing blog pages from a smartphone. However, if you have at least 10,000 visitors per day, it’s worth considering creating a dedicated mobile app.
