Our new website is finally launched and we couldn’t be more excited!
When we set out to build the new Soap Media website, we had a few main goals in mind: we wanted to not only showcase our skillset and tell compelling stories in a beautiful and succinct way, but also leverage the latest and future-proof technologies to provide the best customer experience possible.
Our forward-thinking team is constantly keeping an eye on digital marketing trends that can optimise our clients’ business processes. Progressive Web Apps (PWA) is one of these innovative technologies. PWA is a term that Google coined a few years back. It represents a mixture of checklist technologies and approach to building a web presence with three objectives in mind.
So, what benefits do Progressive Web Apps have?
Cross Platforms
Progressive Web Apps have the advantage of reusing existing code, which means that they aren’t restricted to specific platforms. From a brand perspective, it allows us to really engage with our customers and present ourselves in the best light, as PWA websites are super-fast, responsive, and reliable.
This technology roadmap is aligned with Google’s suggestions and what they are preaching, which is about providing the best UX possible. Google promote it and use elements of sites built in the best possible and favourable way in their search results.
Our customers are future-proofing any potential cost of having to replatform or go down the wrong path in the future. And so are we! PWA allows for websites to adjust to all devices, making them easily accessible offline. This provides a better UX, with push notifications prompting users to add websites to their home screen after visiting a few times.
Reliability
There is no need to worry about network state with PWA. Service workers, written in JavaScript, enable them instantly for an immediate and reliable web presence. They’re similar to client-side proxy, as they give complete control of the cache and how resource requests are answered.
Even across mixed connection speeds – or even having no service while on the go – there’s no need to rely on the network. PWA work by pre-caching key resources for when they’re needed, making sure that business is conducted as normal.
Speed
Did you know that if a website takes three seconds or more to load, 53% of internet users will abandon it? And when websites do load, users expect them to be fast and easy to use. When developing our new website, our team kept in mind the user experience (UX). We ensure we have the latest developments in website usability, by:
- Providing a consistent and thorough UX operation throughout the entire website.
- Designing the website in a natural and intuitive way.
- Following data-led processes that allow for measurable UX results.
- Creating a UX that provides more than just stunning design, including the ‘feel’ of our brand.
- Giving users a website experience with helpful interactions that guide users to our products or services.
- Optimising UX in such a way that allows for a defined marketing strategy that is fully measurable.
Engagement
Progressive Web Apps don’t require an app store; they can be installed and made live on any user’s home screen. They provide an immersive, full-screen experience through a Web App Manifest file, and they’re capable of re-engaging users by providing push notifications.
It’s easy to control how the app appears and how it’s launched through the Web App Manifest file. This technology offers control over the home screen icons, the loading page when the app is launched, the option of showing the browser chrome, and the screen orientation.
Why are Progressive Web Apps So Exciting?
- Increased user engagement. The web push notifications allow users to see an increase in time spent on their website.
- Network reliability. Conditions no longer influence your work; through the service workers, you can ensure that your business runs smoothly.
- Increased conversions. PWA allow you to offer your users a great UX – a difference you’ll notice through increased conversions.
- Secure connection. Because PWA need secure logins, you’re assured a HTTPS domain that provides extra security.
Ultimately, Google always wants to deliver the best experience possible. And so do we! By promoting a set of standards that Google sees as the future, the company uses them to rank or favour websites and to drive the web to better standards. This translates to better conversion rates and ‘feel’ on the on-site experience for us and our customers.
We ran various internal R&D exploratory projects to evolve the best stack that was both future-proof and efficient to develop and use. This allowed us to conduct rapid prototyping in Invision and to develop an initial ‘feel’ and flow of storytelling for our new website across all devices and resolutions.
The benefit? We can now experiment to develop something that is unique yet still true to our brand. Our last goal was to look just like your typical agency website; to do this, we needed to be true to our brand, which we achieved by adopting our content-first approach that allowed a rapid, pain-free process.
Investing in a Content-Driven Design
The hardest work that most agencies say they do is their own – and how true is this? It can be difficult to not overthink your own identity, perception, or the tone of voice, and by proxy get caught up in a revisionist mentality.
A content-driven web design has the main objective of conveying information instead of tasks. The main question we asked ourselves was “What do users want to know?” We wanted to make sure we answered questions in a satisfactory way while providing a great UX. This allows us to provide:
- Increased consistency
- Better and clearer guidelines
- Higher content quality
- Improved processes
- Higher ROI
- Better productivity
Over the years, we’ve taken to refining our own unique process and combining it with a content marketing approach for better storytelling. And what’s content marketing without SEO? At Soap we always make sure that all components of a website or a service work together to create the best possible experience for our clients.
