Having a mobile app for your business has become inevitable if you want to be at the forefront of the competition. The reason is simple: a number of people are turning to their smartphones for almost everything – booking tickets, reading, shopping and much more. Earlier, mobile browsers or mobile websites were in the trend, but today, it’s all about mobile apps. After all, they are convenient, fast and easy to use.
So, are you planning to build a mobile app but worried about incurring the cost of the same?
Well, we have an amazing solution to it!
If you have already built a beautiful WordPress site, but not a mobile app, don’t worry. There’s always the much-in-trend DIY approach to opt for! Yes, even here!
With a WordPress plugin, you can create a new and all-mobile channel to be available to your target audience.
If you are inquisitive to find more about how can a plugin assist in turning your WordPress site into a mobile app, take a look at the following!
Plugins that Can Convert a WordPress site into a mobile app
Some of the most popular plugins that can assist you in turning the WordPress site into a mobile app include:
1) Androapp
Opt for this plugin if you have a content-driven website like newspapers and blogs. This plugin takes your news feed and further turns it into a mobile-friendly layout. The outcome in the form of a mobile app will look similar to your responsive website. But, it obviously is more suitable than the website because of the presence of added functionalities like:
- Image zooming
- Saving content offline
- Send unlimited push notifications
- In-line ads
- Support for WordPress/Facebook comments
- Support for deep linking (if you want to highlight different pages of your app in the search)
- Infinite scroll facility
- Custom theme and colors to match with your website
A quick note to follow here:
At least for time being, it is recommended to launch your app only on the Android platform as the functionality is currently in beta. But, building an iOS app can definitely be kept in your pipeline.
2) AppPresser
AppPresser is quite easy to use and has a dedicated WordPress mobile theme that further creates the mobile app for your WordPress site.
If you think that a free WordPress plugin won’t suffice your need and at the same time, don’t even want to pay for building the mobile app, this probably has to be your plugin choice. With it, you can get access to the following mobile app features:
- WordPress plugin and extension compatibility (this means you can integrate features like Google maps, Facebook login, camera connectivity and so on)
- Design navigation as tabs or pull-out menu
- Custom page creation
- Push notification
Though it brands to be easy in nature, it is not considered to be an ideal tool for the non-developers. It requires extensive customization to build your app from scratch and actually make it work as an app. So, consider this plugin if you have a developer’s assistance at your side.
3) Blappsta
Blappsta is completely free to use and is compatible with both Android and iOS platforms. It comes with a unique feature of ‘Blappsta Preview’ which lets you test and preview your experiments before actually making it live. So, you can see how your site will look like in the mobile app form even before creating it.
Its features include:
- Facility of push notifications when a new post is live
- Deep linking indexing for Google
- Facility of share buttons of various social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter
- Flexibility in organizing the content on your mobile app
- Customize navigation as well as home page design
Once you create the mobile app, it can display popular articles, support the videos; display your Facebook page and much more. However, it is still relatively a new plugin compared to others.
4) MobiLoud
The Mobile App Canvas is a plugin created by MobiLoud which enables you to create a mobile app while launching it in both: Google Play Store and Apple App Store. It is one of the best plugin options to get a native mobile app from a WordPress site. You don’t need to create a separate theme, you can continue with your existing one for your app when you choose this plugin. Also, you have the flexibility of selecting a different theme altogether!
Features of MobiLoud include:
- Amazing range of themes for your mobile app
- Customization of themes as per your preference with WordPress Customizer
- Facility of adding a menu and animations to your mobile app
- Automatic content updates
- Push notification feature
- Compatible on all major platforms – Android phone, iPhone, iPad and tablets
- Mobile advertising and monetizing
- Complete control over your app’s design and content
- User-friendly
- No technical knowledge required to create the app
Once you download the Mobile App Canvas from MobiLoud, the team will take care of building the mobile app. Additionally, they will even maintain it. However, it’s not a free service.
5) appful
Being compatible with both: Android and iOS, appful is considered to be one of the best mobile app plugins to create a supreme mobile app. appful is created by SaaS company that assists companies, publishers and magazines to reach their target audience by creating enterprise software solutions.
appful provide features like:
- Native social media sharing
- offline reading
- facility of ‘Read Later’ and ‘Comments’
- YouTube support
- Live editing
- Great app speed due to caching
- Placing own advertisements in the app
- Twitter profile page integration
- Facility of using Google Analytics to inspect the mobile app traffic
You are entitled with great mobile app designs at a fair price on appful which you can further customize them as per your preference. You will have to pay a nominal cost at the time of publishing your mobile app to the Apple App Store or Android Play Store.
6) Web2App
This WordPress plugin easily converts your responsive website into a full native app. Even if the setup is quite easy, you will not have to compromise on the quality of the mobile app if it is created with Web2App. It is both, suitable as well as an affordable choice of the plugin that serves you with different customization facilities.
Some of the interesting mobile app features you can get with this plugin include:
- App rating to get customer reviews on Google Play
- Startup splash screen
- Different ways for mobile app’s display and navigation
- Social sharing
Above all, they also provide you with a video tutorial so that you are able to create your mobile app easily with this plugin.
7) WappPress
WappPress is considered to be the most cost-efficient platform while allowing you to convert WordPress website to Android app through simple click functionality. Here, you will not have to think of hiring the developers as even a non-developer can build the app with just a few settings.
Features of using WappPress include:
- Customizing features for templates and other pages
- Multiple premade theme
- Custom home page
- Launcher icon
- Custom splash screen
- Push notifications
- Google Play Store support
Once you have built your mobile app, you can simply publish it on Google’s Play Store on your own.
Which plugin will you choose?
Using any of these plugins to turn your WordPress site into a mobile app will carve your path towards reaching your target audience. Even if you have a responsive design, having a mobile app for your business will bring in more traffic, leads and ultimately sales.
So, which plugin will you choose for your app? Are you aware of other plugins? Do tell us in the comments.
