A Beginner’s Guide To Develop A Mobile App For Businesses

In today’s digital era, there is hardly a person who doesn’t own a mobile phone or other devices like tablets, etc. According to a report, there are 6 million smartphone users worldwide and the number of users is expected to increase in the upcoming years. People check their mobile every other minute, and around 90% of screen time they spend on apps. 

Now you probably got the reason behind the insanely emerging popularity & high demand for mobile apps among every other industry across the world. Mobile apps have completely transformed the way people use their mobile phones, so how companies handle their business. Be it shopping, or transportation apps, food delivery, or medical apps, mobile apps are indeed the future of every industry. From retail business to the gaming industry, app stores & Google stores have created a massive market where every product/service is available at our fingertips.

Undoubtedly, mobile apps are an efficient & quick way for businesses to dominate a huge market with a target audience.

This is high time to hire a professional Mobile App Development Company to create engaging, robust & scalable mobile apps to beat the competition. If you have got an idea for an app but don’t know where to start from, this useful guide will help you to learn how to develop an app for your business. Apps with an appealing UI/UX, and backed by trendy tools will help you access a global audience fast.

Do Some Brainstorming To Get An Idea

The most important strategy behind a successful mobile app is a killer & solid idea. You might already have a basic idea in your mind. Get a notebook and write it down asking the following questions:

1. What will your app perform?
2. How is it going to help the audience?

Additionally, make a list of all features like what your app will look like, etc. Separate them into - “Must have” & “Average”. Try to describe your apps in brief for potential users with some engaging screenshots for them to decide & see before downloading.

Some Competitive Market Research

Before you move to the next step of developing an app for your business, it is important to make sure that you are providing your users with something that others don’t. You are resolving their unnoticed issues or anything that they are looking for. Try to find out what your competitors are lacking and if people are looking for an app similar to yours.  

Knowing Target Audience Is A Must

To build a successful mobile app, and to reach a large network of people across the world, it is important to find out what type of audience you are focusing on & gather information about them. It will help you develop further strategies for your mobile apps. Try to find out what they are looking for and the best time-saving & data-driven approach is by conducting a detailed market survey so that you could know about the obstacles they are facing and decide how your apps will address them.

Recommended Read: A Beginner’s Guide To SEO

Choose Right Mobile App Development Tools

“Mobile apps” is an umbrella term that covers several different types of mobile apps built for different platforms. Choosing the best type of app & platform will brighten up its chances of success. For example:

1. Native Apps - These are those apps that are developed for a particular platform such as, if you are targeting iPhone users, you or your development team will surely focus on Objective-C and your product will be sold in Apple’s app store. Android users will not be able to use these apps.
2. Web Apps -  These are not apps but websites designed to look & feel like an app. They are built in HTML5 and run in the user’s browser.
3. Hybrid Apps - As the name implies, it is a combination of web & native apps.

Choose Right App Builders

To get started on prototyping, designing & development phases, it is good to hire an appropriate app builder as per your suitability such as:

1. Online App Builders -  There are tons of online mobile app builders that can help you start developing your native apps without coding.
2. Hire Mobile Development Agency - To save yourself from the complex & time-consuming process of app designing & development, hire a professional mobile app development agency. Search online, discuss charges & choose the best one.
3. Freelancers - It is an alternative & low-cost option to mobile app development agencies but skills are not guaranteed.

Prototype

Are you done with the user journey mapping, documentation & other requirements? Now the development team will build a prototype of your app based on the provided data by you. It is a sketch to show how the app will work or look etc so that you can test its functionality before getting it developed. After this, an actual prototype will be developed based on your feedback along with fundamental features that you can interact with.

Designing

The design of your apps is the next most critical component of the app development process. After all, it is the design of apps that makes them eye-catching, & attractive. The UI/UX designers team will start working on some awesome app designs but always consider screen sizes. Focusing on attractive visual elements such as app navigation layouts, landing pages, buttons, text fields, icons, etc. is also important. The time during this process depends on the complexity of your apps.

Development

As the label implies, this is the stage where the actual mobile app development takes place. Here you need to make the decision what type of app you are going to build as well as the technology for it such as AndroidNDK, JAVA, Kotlin for Android apps, Swift, Objective-C for iOS, and React Native, Flutter, Ionic for cross-platform apps, etc. The development team will start developing the basic frontend & backend of your app depending on the platform you choose.  

Testing

The next step is testing the final apps to find out any errors while operating them on various devices. It eliminates any potential problems that may occur in the future. Ask your team to use browser-based debugging tools or different types of tests to make your application error-free. Test your wireframe also and make sure that the app is running on various screen sizes.

Launch on the App Store

This is the last step of the mobile app development process excluding new feature add-ons etc. where the development team will launch your app on the applicable app stores for users to get them downloaded & installed. It can be a daunting task to launch an app on the app store due to the complexity & strict guidelines.  

Marketing

You may not know but the app stores today allow companies to put their photos, videos, and content that can help to target the right audience. Here professional SEO Services can help you market your business mobile app in the right way both on the app store and on other platforms such as your website etc.
 

Recommended Read: Promote Your Business Digitally During The Global Pandemic  

Improve Apps With Feedback & Updates

An important thumb rule is that app development doesn’t finish after being launched. The users are going to leave their feedback & reviews as well as bugs will occur or you may want to add various new features. Pay attention to all these factors and improve user experience.

Regardless of the type of mobile apps, be it Android or iOS, a mobile app development process is almost the same right from the beginning. But to save time & avoid technical complexities like coding or designing, it is a great idea to hire a mobile app development company.