Progressive Web Apps for e-commerce – Everything You Need to Know

 

Many businesses have reaped the benefits of Progressive Web Apps since their debut in 2015. They're able to attract new users while still providing an interesting experience for existing ones. Companies like Twitter, Trivago, Alibaba, and Walmart have seen their conversion rates more than double, and their revenue has grown at a quicker rate than at any time in the company's history.

Many small and mid-sized firms are drawn to the PWA success stories of these corporate giants. Businesses of all sizes may now benefit from Progressive Web Apps, which allow them to deliver an app-like experience to a far bigger audience on the mobile web, making this a must-have technology.

What is a Progressive Web Application?

PWAs are web applications that give a native app-like experience to consumers by making use of today's most cutting-edge web technology. It's the technology that will make online and native applications interchangeable and replace them with a single app.

It was previously thought that native applications were superior to the mobile web because they provided a more immersive experience for the end-user. When it comes to performance, a Progressive Web App is as quick as a native app, and it can be added to the home screen of a smartphone, send push notifications, and run even when the user is not connected to the internet.

Features of Progressive Web Apps

● No matter how bad the network is, they'll still load in a flash. Even if you don't have a working internet connection, you'll still have a quick and dependable experience thanks to these devices.

● When your website takes too long to load, clients will leave and you will miss out on sales. PWAs are lightning-fast to load and nimble in their responses to user input. An improved website's conversion, user experience, and retention rates are all boosted when it runs more smoothly.

● With them, you get a genuine native app experience, complete with web-based features such as the ability to send Push Notifications and display on the home screen.

Why a Progressive Web App is Necessary for Your Business

In an age when mobile traffic has surpassed desktop traffic and presently accounts for 60% of all traffic, businesses must do everything they can to keep their customers happy as they buy. Only 16 percent of overall conversions come from mobile visitors, despite the fact that mobile traffic is expanding at a rapid pace.

If you're starting or expanding an online business, you should consider offering your products and services through a Progressive Web app rather than just a traditional online store. They are uncommon and exciting opportunities to get ahead of the competition because the bulk of e-commerce websites have not yet adopted this new technology.

Excellent speed and responsiveness

The average loading time of online sites on mobile devices on 3G networks is 19 seconds, while on 4G networks it is 14 seconds. This is nearly astonishing.

The primary goal of a Progressive Web App (PWA) is to provide the user with an incredibly quick and fluid experience. Page load speeds are improved by using 'native-style' web caching and web speed advantages. A real 'instant' speed experience is provided by PWAs, which may be loaded in as little as one second and immediately grab the attention of the user.

Progressive Web Apps also consume less space on both the business' server and user's device, resulting in faster loading times, less data consumption, and less storage space required for the user.

By placing the app on the user's home screen, the app is more likely to be used

With the same features as native apps, Progressive Web Apps deliver a highly engaging user experience. Installing Progressive Web Apps on the home screen puts them at the fingertips of users.

The average number of apps installed on a smartphone in a given month is close to zero. Apps aren't something that people do.

To use a Progressive Web App, all you have to do is click on a link and accept a prompt. Placing the website on the home screen turns it into a "genuine" app from the perspective of the user. Downloading from an app store isn't necessary with this method, although it saves time and effort.

As a bonus, the PWA does not need to be updated after it has been put on the home screen. Because PWAs are always being updated in the background, your consumers will always view the most up-to-date information.

Push notifications are a great way to keep users more engaged

Push Notifications may be sent from a PWA to mobile devices just like they can from a native app. Businesses can connect with their customers where they are most active: on their mobile devices, resulting in a more enjoyable user experience for everyone involved.

It's impossible to ignore these signals, even if they're so little. With Push Notifications, a company doesn't have to spend a lot of time or money collecting email addresses or other contact information before engaging with their audience as they would with more traditional forms of marketing like emails. They also stand out from the crowd.

Almost all online activity is performed under a pseudonym, with no personal information (email addresses, phone numbers, etc.) associated with the user. Almost every company is hoping to convert this into a sweet spot.

It is possible to boost your search engine rankings with PWAs

Everything in a PWA can be indexed by search engines because it is web-based. Google and Bing may connect to, distribute, and rank any material included within a PWA. Comparatively, search engine robots cannot explore native apps. It is now possible for people to access the most advanced digital items at any time and on any device thanks to the dissolution of the web and native divides.

However, the importance of technical SEO cannot be overstated. It is critical that Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are implemented correctly. Because of JavaScript's flexibility, Google treats a single published page as a JavaScript site when considering Progressive Web Apps.

 AJAX and JavaScript websites can be crawled and indexed by Google just like PWAs can, but the search engine's ability to identify, crawl and reliably index JavaScript-based material has historically been weak.

Fortunately, there is no need for concern. With server-side rendering, PWA developers can guarantee that the website is indexed properly, which can be done easily by providing PWAs with the required architecture to obtain the best SEO results possible.

Faster innovation and continuous delivery are the results of lower development expenses

Currently, businesses with an Omni channel, multiplatform approach construct, manage, and promote as many as four systems: their (responsive) website, their Android app, their iOS app, and in some cases, even their Windows 10 native app(s).

To design, maintain, and sell a Progressive Web App (PWA), there is no need for anything but the PWA website itself. As a result, one platform may serve all channels and be designed, managed, and supported by a single group. When it comes to reducing the cost of production and the time it takes to get a product to market, this method is an excellent choice.

PWAs provide new possibilities for improved user experiences

Users may immediately see how much better PWAs perform in terms of speed, efficiency, slickness, and overall use. This includes everything from background loading into their home screen to surfing in full-screen mode, loading pages quickly, and making little use of storage space on their device. Because of the user's increased satisfaction and the fact that they've completed their responsibilities, they'll be more likely to return to your app in the future.

What is SEO Automation and the must-have Automation Tools?

 

When it comes to doing the things you must do on a regular basis, time is money. At least if they're done by hand, they are. From the initial investment to the implementation, many effective SEO tactics need a significant amount of time.

It's impossible to ignore the truth that time is money in today's world. It doesn't matter if you work for a marketing firm or as a freelance SEO. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to use eight SEO automation tools that may help you get the most out of your time and resources, so you can focus on what really matters.

What is SEO Automation?

To begin, let's examine what SEO automation is in reality. Search engine optimization (SEO) automation refers to the practice of employing software to automate processes that would otherwise have to be done manually. You may save both time and money by utilising SEO automation solutions. These are two priceless resources for any business or marketer.

Automating tedious SEO chores frees up the time of savvy digital marketers, allowing them to focus on more strategic work for their customers and their websites. Productivity may be increased by the use of automation.

Is It Possible To Automate SEO Tasks?

What, therefore, can SEOs automate to save time? Depending on your level of technical skill, you can automate a wide range of jobs. Off-the-shelf solutions can automate monotonous SEO activities. Despite the fact that these tools require some configuration, they're simple to use and may save you a lot of time.

SEO Automation tools like Semrush are in this category of SEO software that can assist you in a wide range of jobs and provide the data you need to take your campaign to a new level of success.

If you want to automate processes that are specific to your business or routine, you may utilize scripting languages like Python. However, the majority of SEO chores can be automated, such as:

● Tracking a person's whereabouts

● Crawling of the Internet

● Tracking for mentions of the brand and new links

● Reviewing your link profile's quality

● Reporting

● Log files for analysis

● The study of the purpose of the keywords

● Scalable generation of meta descriptions

Okay, so some of these jobs can be automated using custom scripts, but the point is to get you excited about the possibilities.

What You Need to Know About SEO Automation Tools

With the aid of SEO automation tools, you may automate operations that would otherwise have to be completed manually. We'll take care of everything from monitoring your site's search engine rankings to conducting a technical assessment. Here, we'll take a closer look at six of the platform's automation capabilities that might help you operate a little more efficiently:

Position Tracking

We've all had to do that at some time in our careers and it's something we all need to assess and monitor (despite the many debates around whether or not we should be tracking rankings at all).

Rankings are still an essential KPI that we should monitor on a regular basis, even if simply to show progress on a long-term objective. In addition, the Position Tracking Tool may aid you in automating this process by using a list of keywords that we've found or that you've created on your own.

You may also set up reports to be delivered to your mailbox on a regular basis so you can keep tabs on your progress. Automating a simple operation like this may save you a lot of time each month, even if it's done at the most basic level.

Reports

During the first few days of every month, have you ever spent time creating SEO reports for internal or external stakeholders? As crucial as this duty is, it requires a significant amount of time away from other productive activities that may help your business develop.

Reports not only prove the value of your efforts, but they also show you where you're succeeding and where you may improve your approach. These reports allow you to run a flexible strategy and change course if necessary in order to achieve your goals.

The drawback is that reporting requires a lot of time. This is especially true if you're constructing them by hand. There's a strong probability the program can automate the process of reporting on whatever it is you require. Once again, we're freeing up time that might be used to help the business develop.

Brand monitoring

Any time your brand is mentioned (or your website is linked to), you want to know about it straight away, right? When you're always searching the Internet for remarks and links, you're wasting time that could be better spent doing anything else.

Brand Monitoring's ability to provide mentions and links directly to your email makes it an ideal tool for finding mentions and links in the SEO world.

With a single list of mentions and links (and a quick method to check which ones are connected and which ones don't), you can then evaluate the data and take steps to change those that aren't linked into ones that are.

It's a great strategy that everyone should be doing, but discovering these references soon enough to act on them is often the most difficult part. Your efforts might be focused on a link reclamation plan after automating the finding of brand references.

Site Audit

It is critical to stay abreast of any changes in SEO-related jargon. Getting the rankings you deserve will be difficult if Google cannot effectively crawl and index your site. Manually compiling all of the faults found during a crawl is possible, but it takes an inordinate amount of time.

With the help of an automated technical audit, you may more easily uncover faults that could otherwise go missed. Once you've set up your crawl, you'll be given with a slew of data from the tool's analysis of more than 130 variables. Instead of wasting time attempting to find the faults, you can use the audit tool's recommendations to solve the ones that are already there.

Backlink Audits

Auditing your current connections is an equally vital but time-consuming process in addition to keeping tabs on new links and making efforts to obtain them.

There is a risk of poisonous links if you don't keep an eye on your current links. If there are a lot of toxic linkages, they can and do cause difficulties. Keep an eye on the quality of your link profile and take steps to remove or disavow any that you consider being artificial.

It is up to you to let the program examine the links that lead to your site and notify you of an increase in links with high toxicity levels. Instead of doing the analysis by hand, you may put your time and energy into cleaning them up.

Improve Your Website’s UX Design for Maximum Conversion Rate with these steps

 

Creating an easy-to-navigate website/app/system is one of the most important aspects of a good user experience. A user's conversion can be influenced by the placement of any number of little elements on an interface. The product's user experience is owned by all of these components working together.

Improve Your Website’s UX Design for Maximum Conversion Rate with these steps

UX strategies to improve user experience and enhance conversion rates are provided below in this article.

A page that loads quickly

How can you tell what's quick enough? Customers who don't want to wait more than three seconds before leaving a website, according to a 2009 survey, a supplier of content delivery networks. It's poof if it takes more than three and a half or four seconds for your site to open.

DoubleClick, a Google subsidiary, conducted a fresh study in 2016 that reaffirmed similar findings. Sites that take more than three seconds to load are abandoned by 53 percent of mobile visitors. You only have 3–5 seconds to make an impression on a visitor. The consumer will grow impatient and go to another site if yours takes more than ten seconds to load (mostly your competitors).

The CTA (Call to Action) Button Design and Positioning

UX is heavily influenced by where you put your call to action. CTAs that are difficult to see, read, or click have a poor effect on user experience and conversions. Many websites have the objective of promoting a product, service, subscription, or registration. In order for a CTA to be effective, it must be placed in the right spot.

There's a lot of discussion on the internet regarding how color affects consumer behaviour. When it comes to CTA (call-to-action) buttons, it's widely accepted that CTA buttons in green are more successful than CTA buttons in red. When it comes to conversion, color doesn't matter nearly as much as you may think because it affects perception more than anything else. This is when contrast and visibility come into play.

In order to increase conversions, you need to pay attention to your CTA wording. CTA headlines and buttons are often overlooked by companies since they don't pay attention to what they say. At the bottom of a lot of web pages, you'll find a "Submit" button. Even though this is suitable in some cases, CTA buttons and headlines offer a big chance to enhance conversion with excellent writing.

Use only the best and most original photos

Adding images to a webpage quickly enhances its visual appeal, making it more inviting to the eye. Your picture choice, however, can have a significant impact on how well or poorly your website looks.

Whenever possible, avoid using stock photographs in your work. Stock pictures are inexpensive and simple to use, yet often do more harm than good. Even if stock photographs appear professional, consumers will quickly learn to recognize them as such and lose interest in using them.

More people come to original photographs since they are more relatable, and the user can identify with them. When compared to stock photos, which are often used and lack attractiveness.

This is the last point to keep in mind when constructing a website: employing stock photographs conveys the impression that you haven't put much work into it. Moreover, it doesn't appear to be original because it may have been used elsewhere.

Visibility and Optimization of Textual Content

Consider the fact that your visitors and leads don't really read most of the content on your website. Short attention spans necessitate that any material they consume be simple to read and understand. When people can't understand your material, they won't know what to do.

White space or negative space on your website might actually help you develop a beautiful website design, according to me. That's correct, of course! However, in spite of its importance, it is still so underappreciated in terms of website design.

White space surrounding text and headers has been shown to improve user attention and enhance the user experience. The use of white space improves the readability and usability of your material. While white space may be useful, it must be used in moderation. Increasing the amount of White Space on a web page has been shown in several studies to enhance click-through rates.

Guest Login

These days, customers are apprehensive about disclosing their personal information on a public website such as yours. Only a few of them would be interested in establishing a long-term relationship with you, even if they liked your products enough to purchase them. Despite this, a large number of online retailers still force customers to sign up for newsletters or other services they aren't interested in. This has a devastating effect on conversion rates because customers would rather not deal with newsletters, promotional offers, and upsells than deal with the hassle of purchasing.

Automate the creation of a user account and the assignment of a random password when they make a purchase and send the information with the order receipt to their mailbox. When customers don't sign up, you still want them to buy your goods and services, right?

Animations and transitions should have the right length of time

Users are drawn in by animation, which can be used to direct their attention. A good idea, provided the user is paying attention to what they're supposed to be looking at.

Animation that is placed in the wrong place or at the wrong speed can be a distraction from the content. In order for users to be able to notice when elements change state or position, the animation duration should be slow enough to not cause waiting.

The object that has travelled the shortest distance should be the first to come to a halt among those moving at the same speed. Bigger offsets mean slower movement for smaller things, so they should be moving more slowly than larger ones.

Have consistent color palettes based on the company's brand

Colors should be limited to reflect your company's brand when creating a landing page or any other web page. Your user may become confused and lose focus if you use an excessive number of colors in your design.

You'll be able to create a more balanced design if you only use one or two colors but use their respective shades and hues. Colors, like emotions, can be compared to this. Any visitor to your website who sees a page with an excessive number of colors will be dazzled.

The 60-30-10 rule is a good one to follow when it comes to interior design. You should use 60 percent of your palette for the primary color, 30 percent for the secondary color, and 10 percent for the highlighting color.

It's not always necessary for your UI color to match the company's brand identity, but it's a good way to ensure that the user experience is consistent and that the product is easier to identify.

Develop Autocomplete and Search Suggestions

How many drop-downs or autocomplete suggestions does your site's search offer to users as they type? Your users will benefit from these strategies because they will spend less time and keystrokes on their searches and find more relevant search terms. User satisfaction increases when tasks are made easier for them.

Allowing users to click on suggestions and be taken directly to search results reduces the amount of time it takes to find what they're searching for. With autocomplete, users get immediate feedback, which helps them find what they're looking for and convert faster.

 

Prototyping, which is an important part of the user experience and user interface design process, allows us to test ideas before they are completely developed, resulting in a better user experience. Designers can develop either a high-fidelity or low-fidelity prototype, depending on its intended use, which allows them to test a feature, application, or website before releasing it to the general public.

Best Prototyping Tools for UI/UX Designers

Because of the multiple prototype tools that are accessible to designers, there is no shortage of ways to demonstrate your idea to others. But which one is the most suitable for your workflow, your team, and your product in particular? These are the top tools for UX/UI designers to use in order to construct the optimal interactive model for your design concept or product concept.

Adobe XD

When it comes to UX/UI designers, Adobe XD is one of the most popular tools since it is an all-in-one prototyping platform that can be used for wireframe creation as well as immersive prototype creation for website designs, sports, smartphone applications, voice interfaces, and more. The ability to collaborate in real-time across platforms while receiving useful comments and feedback from clients is a significant advantage.

Sketch

Sketch is one of the greatest programs available today for creating all types of user interfaces, including mobile, web, and code assistance, which is why millions of programmers all around the globe rely on it to develop their interfaces.

Sketch facilitates a fluid production process, allowing designers to create high-quality designs with ease. Think of it as a more advanced and well-supported variation of the popular software Figma (albeit it is only accessible on iOS).

Figma

Figma is a drag-and-drop editor that makes it simple to generate wireframes and working prototypes for any project. It also offers a lot of immersive components that may be used to animate prototypes.

The majority of designers are already familiar with this well-known web-based user interface design tool. While Figma is best known as a user interface design program, it also includes software for fast prototyping. An additional feature is the availability of plugins such as Figmotion and Auto flow, in addition to the Arc Tool and Vector Networks programs.

Webflow

Webflow is becoming increasingly popular because it allows developers to work more quickly by delivering clean, semantic code and designs, which speeds up their work. For designing zero-coding sensitive websites, this tool is a well-known prototype approach that has been used for years.

With its pre-built features, designers can quickly and easily build high-fidelity designs that Webflow can convert to a fully functional website for production. Or, to put it another way, Webflow enables you to prototype while simultaneously developing a live website.

Axure RP (Rapid Prototyping)

Axure RP combines prototype capabilities with SVG import, Sketch and Adobe XD integration, and other features. From Adobe XD, you can quickly and simply share Axure RP prototypes and artboards with others.

You can also gather feedback at the top of your screens. While transforming static photos into dynamic Axure Cloud prototypes, the interface allows you to study the layout, get CSS snippets, and download components from the server. Axure RP also makes it easier to provide thorough documentation, automate redlining, and improve handoff to developers without the requirement for coding skills.

Mockplus

Mockplus is another piece of software that is designed with prototyping in mind and is excellent for cross-team cooperation. In addition, Mockplus, one of the fastest-growing prototype tools on the market, provides for rapid design and revisions to that design as needed.

While designers are organizing their processes, developers are gathering snippets of code to use in their projects. All of this contributes to a far more simplified project collaboration process.

Mockplus provides plugins for Axure, Sketch, Adobe Photoshop, Figma, and Adobe XD, allowing you to prototype any project from a variety of platforms and applications. Mock PlusCloud also features desktop programs for Windows and Mac, as well as mobile applications for iOS and Android. All projects are synchronized to the Mock PlusCloud, so collaboration isn't restricted to those who use the same operating system as you are.

Claritee 

A powerful visual wireframing tool, Claritee allows you to convert your ideas into visually appealing designs that can be shared and worked on collaboratively with your team in real-time. The tool is rather simple to use for designers and project managers, as well as for marketers and anybody else in your team who wants to offer feedback on the project.

InVision

InVision is another online application that is mostly concerned with architecture. It includes all of the materials you'll need to make the transition from wireframing to user interface design. InVision also has useful tools for integrating cooperation and prototyping quickly and efficiently.

InVision, like some of the other tools described above, allows designers to make real-time design changes and get immediate input from teams, while also helping them to manage their workflow.

Framer

In addition to its flexibility, Framer is well-known for its immersive UI, effective layouts, and easy templates. Due to the fact that it is a code-based prototyping platform that makes use of CoffeeScript to construct prototypes, it goes beyond the usual drag-and-drop nature of designer dynamics.

One disadvantage of this program is that the interface and workflow might be unnecessarily sophisticated, forcing developers and designers to put in a significant amount of effort to become familiar with the software.

The Origami Studio

Origami Studio is a desktop program for the Mac operating system that was developed and is now in use by Facebook. The mobile app version of the program is also available, which allows you to view your prototypes on a real device.

This prototype tool was first introduced by Facebook in 2013. Initially, it worked with Quartz Composer, but that element of the Xcode environment wasn't the most efficient for prototype purposes. As a result, Facebook launched Origami Studio last year.

The tool is, for all means and purposes, a reincarnation of their earlier prototype tool that operates within their own environment. The relocation has significantly improved the platform's speed, but it is still only available to Mac users, which is sad.

Visit DesignLab Today for Best UI/ UX Designs

The learning curve, amount of fidelity, and (maybe most significantly) how these tools will operate for your complete team should all be considered when deciding which application to utilize for your next project. Generally speaking, the more comfortable and easy-to-use a tool is, the more time you'll have to communicate and develop with your team. Visit DesignLab to know more about UI/UX and prototyping services.