Create a Progressive Web App with WordPress

A Progressive Web App (PWA) is a website designed to function like an app. In this article, we’ll explain how you can use your website to create a Progressive Web App with WordPress in just one minute. 

What is a Progressive Web App?

A PWA is a website packaged to look and behave like an app. It can be displayed as an app icon on users’ smartphones, tablets, and computers. It can also work offline, send notifications to users, and run on all modern platforms.

Create a Progressive Web App

You can turn any website into a Progressive Web App. It’s not very hard for a skilled web developer, but even if you don’t know anything about web development it can be simple. We’ll show you how!

Create a Progressive Web App with WordPress

To create a Progressive Web App in WordPress, you’ll need a plugin. We’ve tested several plugins and chosen our favourite, but you can, of course, search for other plugins by looking for “PWA” in WordPress.

Here’s how you can create a Progressive Web App with WordPress:

1. Log in to WordPress
2. Hover over Plugins in the left menu and click on Add new plugin
3. Search for PWA
4. Install Super Progressive Web Apps
5. Click on Activate

It’s that simple! Your website is now a Progressive Web App! If you visit your website on a phone or computer, the browser may ask if you want to install your website as an app.

You can customise your Progressive Web App in the settings of Super Progressive Web Apps located in the left toolbar. There, you can modify the logo of your app, change the description and name, adjust the background colour of the loading screen, and much more. There are additional features for further customisation, enabling PWA for multilingual websites, and quickly creating versions of the app for the Google Play Store. These features come at an extra cost and are part of the pro version of the plugin.

Remember that all plugins that you install on your WordPress website need to be regularly updated to ensure security, so we generally recommend enabling automatic updates. Automatic updates do come with the risk that an update can change your website in a way you don’t intend. With Managed WordPress from one.com, all automatic updates are monitored to ensure your website continues to work perfectly. We perform a visual check of your website before and after each automatic update to make sure that no updates cause problems for your site.

Other methods to create PWAs

It’s possible to create a Progressive Web App for any website. We won’t describe the entire process in this article, but in short, you need to do two things to create a PWA:

1. Create a Web App Manifest containing your website’s name, app icon, colour, and display format.
2. Create a Service Worker, which acts as the bridge between the user’s device and your website. It’s the Service Worker that turns your website into a Progressive Web App.

If you want to learn more and get started with your Progressive Web App, you can read a comprehensive guide on web.dev.

Advantages of a Progressive Web App

Many of the world’s most popular online services use Progressive Web App technology. Some examples include Spotify, Facebook, Tinder, Google, Twitter, Uber, and Starbucks. You can also create a Progressive Web App and benefit from its advantages. Let’s break down some of the key benefits of creating a PWA of your own.

App-like experience

The greatest advantage of a Progressive Web App is that it provides a website with the same user experience as an app. An app is fast, can send notifications, works offline, and can have a prominent place on a user’s device. Having a website function like an app has these additional pluses:

App icon on the home screen

After creating a Progressive Web App, new visitors to your website can download it as an app. Once installed, it will appear on the user’s device’s home screen, whether it’s on an iPhone or Android phone, in the dock of a Mac, or in the taskbar of a Windows computer.

Your app icon can function as a billboard for your website. When ecommerce giant Alibaba created a Progressive Web App for their webshop, they observed that users who added their app to the home screen returned four times more often than others. An app icon can, therefore, turn many of your visitors into recurring users and customers.

People who use a computer from an organisation such as a company or school can often install a Progressive Web App even when the installation of other apps is prohibited, meaning that it can reach an audience that regular apps may struggle to reach.

App with a dedicated view

A regular website is displayed in a browser tab, but a PWA functions like a regular app and, therefore, gets its own window on a computer and appears as a standalone app on mobile devices. Users can close their browser without closing a Progressive Web App and can switch between apps without noticing any difference between a regular app and a PWA.

Featured in app stores

Once you’ve created a Progressive Web App, you can add it as an app in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. This makes your app look more professional and lets it be discovered by new users. A significant bonus of being in an app store is that you can meet your visitors’ expectations for how to install an app. Users can feel secure when downloading your Progressive Web App from an app store they trust.

One app for all platforms

When you create a Progressive Web App, you’re opening a portal to your website. This portal is built following a standard that works with all modern platforms. Just as you can create a website that works on all devices, you can also create a Progressive Web App that works for everyone. You can update the content in all apps by changing your website, and the updates can be sent to all users without them needing to update the app.

Quick loading

The first time a visitor downloads a Progressive Web App, the app is saved on their device. This means that it can quickly load the next time it’s opened. This can make a Progressive Web App faster than a website. The same applies to every click within the app. For each new page, the device can utilise local resources to shorten loading times.

Offline mode

A Progressive Web App can be created to be available offline. This means that the most critical functions can always be accessible and can load quickly even when users have a slow internet connection. It also means that you can have essential features in your app that your users can rely on. For example, you might have a feature to display event bookings. These bookings can be displayed even if the internet connection is slow at the event location.

Send notifications

With a Progressive Web App, you can send notifications to your users. You can inform them about your latest news and send personal messages to users. Notifications can increase the usage of your app and generate more engagement.

Cheaper than developing a regular app

It is much cheaper to create a Progressive Web App than to develop apps for both iOS and Android. If you already have a good website, the costs to create a PWA can be minimal. Even if you have grand ambitions for your app and plan to eventually create a feature-rich app, a Progressive Web App can be a much more affordable alternative as you develop.

Increase traffic and conversion rates

Many major tech companies use Progressive Web App technology, and there’s a good reason for it. A great user experience creates conditions for high traffic and good conversions. Alibaba has reported a 76 percent increase in conversion rates because of their Progressive Web App. Software company Corel saw a 31 percent higher percentage of recurring users with their Progressive Web App.

Disadvantages of a Progressive Web App

There are also disadvantages to creating a Progressive Web App, especially in comparison to more traditional apps developed for iOS and Android.

Doesn’t work on older devices

Progressive Web Apps are a relatively new technology and, therefore, not available on all devices. For Apple iOS, support has been available since iOS 14. This means that iPhones from 2014 or earlier do not support PWA. The same goes for Windows, where support is absent in Windows 8 and earlier versions of Windows. That means that many devices that are not compatible are more than ten years old.

Limited functionality

A Progressive Web App cannot have the same functionality as a regular app. For example, there may be limitations on how an app can integrate with voice assistants. Some operating systems also have low limits on how much space a Progressive Web App can occupy on a phone, typically 50 MB. This can make it difficult for some large websites to be created as a Progressive Web App.

Slower than regular apps

Since a Progressive Web App is fundamentally a website designed to look like an app, it is not built in the same way as a regular app. One consequence of this is that a Progressive Web App often responds slower to clicks than a regular app. A PWA can still be significantly faster than a website, but a regular app will always be faster than a PWA.

Should you create a Progressive Web App?

Do you have a website that you believe your visitors would want to use as an app? Is your website also built with WordPress? Then you should create a Progressive Web App today! It’s very simple and can be really beneficial for both you and your visitors. A Progressive Web App can increase traffic to your website, boost your conversions, and allow you to communicate with your visitors and customers through notifications.

If you don’t have a WordPress website, a PWA can still be valuable, but it might be challenging to make it work. There are plenty of resources online, but you need to be a skilled web developer to succeed.

Now, we hope you have everything you need to get started with your Progressive Web App and understand why it’s a good technology for you and your visitors. If you don’t already have a WordPress website, click here to get started!