Transforming Your WordPress Site into a Mobile App: Why do it and How to do it?

How the most people prefer to consume web services and digital media? Apparently, the preference goes to mobile devices, right? Well, handheld devices besides being accessible all the time transformed the way we access and make use of digital contents. There is no wonder that smartphones and tablets together make the biggest platform for the creation of web-based and native digital contents. From social networking platforms to business websites to entertainment media, all have reformed their digital presence for the mobile audience. Do you know, close to 60% of online activities in the US are done on mobile devices?

Well, such eye opener statistics are no longer needed for many of us since we can easily understand the role of mobile friendly contents in addressing the majority of digital consumers. Website design in the recent times tried to address this issue with a mobile responsive design that allows adapting to the screen size of any device. But even responsive design is not enough to cater to the mobile audience. Do you want to know why?

A recent comScore survey in this respect can be an eye-opener. The survey reported that a vast majority of users prefer accessing the digital media and contents through only native mobile apps. As per the survey, 47% of web traffic accounts for the mobile apps while only 8% engage through mobile browsers. The rest of the survey respondents access the web through other devices like desktops and laptops. Didn’t the survey make it clear that mobile apps drive more engagement and traffic than websites?

There are millions of content rich websites built on WordPress which made it the most popular CMS platform for the web. The appeal of WordPress is prominent with an astounding range of customization tools to ensure a standout look, feel, and exposure. But as the importance of mobile browsers are continuing to decrease, to stay accessible and viable it has become essential to transform your WordPress site into a mobile app.

WordPress Mobile App vs. WordPress Responsive Website

You might have converted the old WordPress website to a mobile-friendly responsive one, and you saw that it looked equally great on mobile devices as well as desktops. Well, it is important to have a mobile-friendly website but still, just the half of your job is done, because most mobile users simply do not like to browse but like to use mobile app from their device screen. So, in spite of having your site designed responsively, you simultaneously should build a separate mobile app for your users. In this way, you remain accessible to your users in every possible way, through responsive websites across devices and native apps.

Each has benefits of its own for users. With a responsive WordPress website, you are addressing the web browsers and catering to the search engine specific keyword searches while with a native mobile app you remain always connected to your users. A mobile app unlike a website is installed on the device and offers unperturbed access. The logo of your website being visible on the instrument screen let you connect to your users incessantly. Moreover, with a mobile app you take advantages of the native device functionalities and thus can enrich the user experience further. Most important of all with a mobile app you can allow in-app advertisements and marketing convert more business for you. During mobile apps thanks to in-app ads offer better scope for business conversion.

How to Build Sophisticated WordPress Mobile Apps?

Do you consider this a daunting task to make an excellent mobile app for your WordPress website? Well, though the process is a bit different from that of building a website, there is an array of effective tools that can make your job easier. It involves a few crucial considerations.

First of all, you can always build your WordPress app with the help of some off-the-shelf tools and themes, or you can seek the help of some expert hands. The first one though can save you development cost but can make your site suffer from technical glitches, performance issues, and non-optimized design. On the other hand, an expert developer company can take the load of your development task and deliver the best WordPress mobile experience.

What are the tools to build WordPress apps?

There is a nice bulk of tools for creating a WordPress Mobile App, ranging from robust ones with a higher learning curve to simple and functional ones with least learning curve. The choice of tools obviously depends on upon your expectations of the outcome and also the skill set of the developers. Let us mention here a few tools for building WordPress apps.

AppPresser

AppPresser is a robust app developer with WordPress integration services for Android or iOS platforms. AppPresser allows uploading images through the app, sending push messages, swipe navigation, geolocation capabilities and eCommerce integration features. It is the most flexible framework but requires strong coding skills and hence, best suited for developers.

Worona

Worona can easily convert WordPress website into different Android and iOS mobile apps. With the help of premium extensions, you can easily integrate a lot of features. Worona can also deliver modern themes and different style options to offer customized look and feel.

Reactor

Reactor is another robust app building tool which is made by the AppPresser team. This tool allows the faster building of apps and is targeted towards non-developers. Reactor may seem a viable option to build apps quickly, but it lacks depth provided by tools like AppPresser.

IdeaPress

IdeaPress allows building apps for Android, iOS, and Windows platforms. This tool takes care of the coding part while the user only needs to focus on design. It is feature-rich offering features like infinite scrolling, deep linking refrain, operating settings, caching, etc.

Mobapper

Mobapper is an app building tool that offers a fortnight-long free trial to try out the service. It offers development service for all the key mobile platforms including Android, iOS, Windows, and Blackberry. The app building and conversion are quite straightforward, and you can always opt for premium options for advertising.

WordPress being the most popular content management platform with great choice of plugins and extensions for every niche purpose deserves mobile development that can transport the typical WordPress ease and versatility over the mobile platform. The above mentioned tools can just deliver the ideal mobile WordPress experience.

About author:

Juned Ghanchi is chief marketing officer at IndianAppDevelopers top mobile app development company that works with leading brands. He mainly responsible for brand promotion, Lead generation, data-driven strategies and integrated marketing management.