5 reasons to go progressive web

Progressive Web has arrived! Here are five reasons why you should go with it

In our previous blog, we talked about the idea behind Progressive Web Applications (PWA), a development that originated from mobile behaviours and needs. The main reason why progressive web applications are getting more and more attention is that they are based on the most advanced technologies in different contexts and that they use the best technology on the web on the one hand and native applications on the other. For this reason, it is important for brands to provide a seamless experience across all channels.

In this post, we discuss 5 reasons why the progressive web is on demand for the brands and how brands like Washington Post, Forbes, and Air Berlin leverages the technology.

Offline Usage

According to the ComScore statistics, 53% of the users leave the mobile site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load the page. With PWA, less data is spent due to PWA technology. When a visitor lands on a website for the first time, the content is downloaded, cached, and stored locally on the user’s device. This allows instant delivery of web pages on subsequent visits. It also makes it possible to visit pages later in offline mode with supported browsers.

Hardware optimized

PWAs use the operating system and features of a mobile device in full capabilities. This includes the display, camera, microphone, and geographic location which increases brands’ capabilities to provide mobile-like experience. Regardless of the device, all users can see the same visual interface and content. Users with supported browsers such as Chrome will experience all the features of PWA. Although Apple has been rumored to be joining this wagon, it has not yet been officially announced.

SEO Boost

Factors such as page opening speed, multi-device support, clean URL structure, content easiness are a big boost for SEO optimization. PWA’s application shell system which optimizes all of this to help SEO with faster load times, cache storage and dynamic content. Since speed is an important factor for Google’s SEO ranking, using cache to load content that is already saved in pre-memory can rank up your brand on searches.

App Like Experience

PWA features app like experiences such as push notification, full-screen mode, the splash screen (mobile app look). Also, PWA allows you to navigate pages offline and even when your internet speed is low, you will be able to navigate mobile web pages with Service Worker, core technology under PWA, at high speed. After the page loads the first time, the speed rate will increase even more. With all these features, brands are able to deliver app like experiences while their visitors browsing the mobile website.

If your website is responsive, PWA will automatically fill the screen perfectly and offers users more enjoyable reading and browsing experience.

Always up-to-date

There is no need to update PWAs for now or later and as it is not necessary to wait for app store approvals, instant updates can be made easily and speedily. Also, as you do not need to download PWAs, it saves storage space on your mobile devices. Especially, in countries with particularly low bandwidths, downloading or updating high-sized apps can be a huge problem. Compare to native apps, PWA applications are considerably small in size. As an example, a 10 MB app can be downsized to 500 KB with PWA.

How World’s Leading Brands Leverage PWA

Washington Post gets faster, gets better with PWA

The Washington Post, the first brand to use PWA technology in the world, has developed the Accelerated Mobile Pages project based on this technology in 2015. Recognizing that 55 percent of readers consume mobile content, Washington Post was aware of how important a good and fast user experience is in the mobile-first era. With the help of PWA, The Washington Post was able to publish over a thousand content pieces a day with an 88% faster loading rate compared to the mobile web.

Forbes redefines their mobile approach with personalized content

By redefining their mobile web approach with PWA, Forbes connected with its readers in a more engageable and frictionless way. They delivered personalized content as well as geographically targeted content. This led Forbes to increase their session per user by 43%, which also increased ad viewability by 20%.

Air Berlin removes lengthy ticket process with offline usage

AirBerlin has provided an offline check-in option to its passengers with their progressive web app application. PWA also allowed passengers to check-in one hour before by through a push notification notifying them about their flight time. Providing offline access to airline tickets via QR code, Air Berlin allowed passengers to easily get rid of the lengthy ticket crossing process.