We design and develop WordPress-based PWAs for big brands, small brands, medium-sized brands, and some innovative startups, too. No matter what the ask, our process allows us to discover, analyze, create, and develop individualized solutions that cater to all of our clients’ needs.
WordPress as a Mobile Application Framework
Building a basic mobile application with WordPress can be significantly faster and cheaper than the traditional custom mobile app development route. It also provides you with two options for deploying it – PWA or Native Apps. Creative Hive Labs enables you to fast track your app development using WordPress Core, plugins, custom development, and integration with critical services that provide common types of functionality. The WordPress framework can be used with either kind of end product and help avoid the lengthy and expensive process customary with native application development. Plus, the framework enables us to translate complicated information into a seamless, user-friendly experience (that doesn’t require a user manual) to deliver the simple user experience that new app users want.
If your WordPress-based mobile app is successful with your target audience, you’ll have insight into what features your user’s desire. You can then decide if you want to invest further by having Creative Hive Labs add new functionality to the WordPress-based app, develop a custom PWA, or build a native app for you. Making further development decisions is easier once your idea has been market-proven.
WordPress PWA Capabilities
Put the power of a modern website that benefits from the massive reach of the web, combined with all the user-friendly features that users love in Android/iOS/desktop apps with a PWA.
The PWA capabilities of WordPress have greatly expanded recently. WordPress now supports the full spectrum of traditional PWA functionality, including:
Progressive Web Apps Built with WordPress
What are Progressive Web Apps
PWAs are experiences that combine the best of the web and the best of mobile apps. New web APIs allow Creative Hive Labs to build progressive web apps using WordPress that close the native versus PWA gap. These APIs enable PWAs to provide a whole native app-like experience by providing access to device-specific capabilities. PWAs are growing in popularity with businesses and users. They don’t require complex installation steps, work on any browser type, and are considered safe due to secure HTTPS delivery.
Did you know 50% of customers will use a mobile site, so they don’t have to download an app? PWAs bridge the mobile-app divide seamlessly.
How do we know that a web app is progressive?
Whether or not your mobile web app is progressive is not a “yes or no” answer – it’s more of a score. A Chrome plugin called Lighthouse generates a report with all PWA capabilities and helps you measure your score and let you know what you need to change to become fully progressive.
What are the benefits of Progressive Web Apps (PWA)?
One of the significant benefits of PWAs is that they are indexable in search engines, so the discoverability of more specialized apps is easier for users than discovery in the app stores. Creative Hive Labs can also work with you to develop and execute a solid SEO strategy to deliver a solid user base for a PWA on a reasonably small marketing budget.
Business Results
- Users spending more time on your service
- Reduced bounce rates for your leads
- Improved conversion rates
- More returning visitors
- Most PWA projects result in higher mobile conversion rates
How Creative Hive Labs Creates WordPress Based PWAs
We’re a close-knit team that stays hands-on with our WordPress-based mobile app design work from start to finish—and we always maintain the client’s original vision and the integrity of the creative concept. Our process pivots on an ongoing conversation between our internal teams and the client, which helps make sure we’re all headed toward the same goals throughout the process. Plus, since we don’t outsource any aspects of design or development, we can ensure high standards for every project.
WordPress Web App Themes
Creative Hive Labs can utilize a web app theme to enable WordPress to act as a PWA without having to code functionality from scratch. These themes are often fully featured and offer high levels of flexibility and power for your PWA.
WordPress Web App Plugins
Creative Hive Labs experts integrate various WordPress plugins to help you create and add additional functionality to your site to make it a Progressive Web App. These operate on a smaller scale and usually only let you implement basic features such as ‘Add to Home Screen’ prompts, web app manifest, push notifications, and basic caching. However, this can still make a dramatic change to how your WordPress website behaves.
Manual Development of WordPress PWAs
Manual development of a WordPress PWA, despite being less costly than other types of mobile development, requires a considerable amount of coding knowledge and developers who know their way around the prevalent JavaScript frameworks and libraries, such as Angular and React. Manual development may be the way to go if you want more flexibility and advanced functionality features, and Creative Hive Labs’s custom development experts can help.
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Creative Hive Labs Develops Custom Employee Portal for Technology Company with WordPress
The client wanted to develop an employee portal for their staff located around the globe. A custom WordPress-based solution was selected that supported all of the initial requirements and offered support for future wish list requirements, and enabled the company to deliver the solution as a progressive web application (PWA).
Additional Methods for Utilizing WordPress With Your Mobile App
Using WordPress as a Back-end for Your Web API
Creative Hive Labs’s other approach to using WordPress to create PWAs is to use the platform as a back-end for the project. WordPress already provides the necessary tools to create custom fields, post types, and store relevant information. WordPress can be used to process all of the data your app requires, and another front-end solution can be selected to create a custom mobile web app experience.
We integrate reliable plugins such as Pods and Advanced Custom Fields to extend WordPress’ database structure and to better meet the needs of your particular web app. From there, APIs can be used for custom data retrieval. With WordPress, there are various options for powering your application’s front-end. For example, you might use the REST API to connect to a JavaScript library such as Node or AngularJS.
Creative Hive Labs’s approach of separating the application’s back-end framework from the front-end client enables us to create scalable apps that give you maximum flexibility during development. Also, building an MVP becomes much more straightforward.
Using WordPress Web App Plugins to Create Native Apps
Creative Hive Labs can also utilize one of several plugins to help you develop a native web app. These plugins enable Creative Hive Labs to “transform” a WordPress site into a native PWA. These plugins support the creation of simple web apps and provide a quick way to get you started with an app such as an online store, blog, and more.
Creative Hive Labs experts use optimized templates and personalized settings to create a user experience (UX) that feels more native to mobile devices.
Examples of these types of WordPress Plugins include:
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/apppresser/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpappninja/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/mobiloud-mobile-app-plugin/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/mobapper/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/ideapress-json-api/
A Single Company Path from WordPress to Custom Development with QAT Global
When you’re ready for a truly custom web development solution, you can seamlessly transition to working with the custom software development team at QAT Global. Since Creative Hive Labs is a division of QAT Global, we are able to provide a single-company path from WordPress-based solutions to full custom development. This provides customers with a strong advantage as their needs evolve, they gain market traction, or they gain additional startup funding, since the team that helped them get to that point will also be there to help them as they grow their solution.
