Mobile website or mobile app – what’s best for your business? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Mobile website or mobile app?

You’re aware that mobile is hot. A quick scan of your favorite lunch cafe probably reveals users tapping, scrolling and viewing a number of mobile devices, whether it’s a smartphone, tablet or laptop. So how best to position your business to take advantage of all these prospects? You have a website that still looks good but since it was built a few years ago, it doesn’t display well on mobile. So you know you need a mobile optimized version of your site but someone at your recent local business owners meeting mentioned they had a custom mobile app designed for their business. Hmmmm …. maybe you should look into getting an app developed for your business? Mobile website or mobile app? The answer is of course both. Start with a mobile optimized website. Your customers and prospects are already familiar with websites so the intake requires little effort on their part. If you’re in need of a new full website then consider a responsive design for your new site. A responsive website reconfigures itself to fit whatever size device is accessing the site. If on the other hand, you’re happy with your current non-responsive website then opt for a separate mobile optimized site. A small bit of code is placed on your current website which detects mobile devices and automatically redirects them to your mobile site. Once you have your mobile website in place, explore getting a mobile app for your business. One of the major advantages of a mobile app is the ability to send push notifications to your mobile app. This gives you the ability to automatically push notifications for events, deals, coupons, etc. to your app which will usually display some type of notification signal on the app icon. Once the app is installed on the mobile device, you now have a free and open communication channel to your your client/customer. Can we say awesome! Check out this infographic from Adaptive for a quick glance at mobile commerce and mobile apps.