The Role of Progressive Web Apps
Web applications have become the most common means of interaction between users on any platform in the world. No one wants to keep typing for a particular URL on their search engine frame whenever they want to use a platform. However, all web applications are not created equal. Progressive web apps take a bigger bite of the pie as they remain the favourite choice for many users in the world. More so, they fulfill all the conditions that many apps hosting platforms mete out. While we will strongly look at progressive web apps on a large scale, we will also check out their creation process. Furthermore, we might look at places wherein they function optimally. What are Progressive Web Apps? A progressive web application (PWA) is an application that depends on the web to function optimally. In creating these PWAs, common tools such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript were instrumental in the building process. These applications work on a variety of devices such as tablets and desktops, as long as they use a standards-compliant browser. A lot of web developers believe PWA features strongly reduce the gap between user experience in web-based and native applications. Strangely, a progressive web app doesn’t need any separate bundling or distribution. As a developer, you can simply publish the web application online, with an assurance it meets the necessary “installability requirements”. If users cannot add the app to their home screen, then that’s a serious problem. Choosing to publish your application in an online store is optional for you. Lately, PWA features get immense support from Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Firefox for Android, and Microsoft Edge, but not Firefox for desktop. Their actions keep helping online businesses hit new revenue goals as they gain better metrics from dwell time and conversions. Further Reading: 9 Tools for Easy Competitive Website Analysis Attributes of Progressive Web Apps As long as your browser conforms to the right web standard, progressive web apps will work perfectly on it. From the onset, the aim has remained to help developers create cross-platform apps easily. Every PWA has key features that form its general makeup. According to Wikipedia, they include: Progressive — Works for every user, regardless of browser choice, using progressive enhancement principles. Responsive — Fits any form factor: desktop, mobile, tablet, or forms yet to emerge. Faster after initial loading – After the initial loading has finished, the same content and page elements do not have to be re-downloaded each time. Connectivity independent — Service workers allow offline uses, or on low-quality networks. App-like — Feels like an app to the user with app-style interactions and navigation. Fresh — Always up-to-date because of the service worker update process. Safe — Served via HTTPS to prevent snooping and ensure they have not tampered with the content. Discoverable — Identifiable as an “application” by manifest.json and service worker registration, and discoverable by search engines. Re-engageable — Ability to use push notifications to maintain engagement with the user. Installable — Provides home screen icons without the use of an App Store. Linkable — Can easily be shared via a URL and does not require complex installation. Further Reading: 10 Tips for Developing a Fantastic Mobile-Friendly Website What Technologies Are Involved in Progressive Web Apps Creating a PWA has a lot of technological requirements. Although a manifest forms one of the core requirements, you’ll get to see other technologies you need to use. These technologies include: Manifest A good definition of a manifest would describe it as a W3C specification that defines a JSON-based manifest (usually labeled manifest. JSON). This manifest usually helps developers access a central environment wherein they can store to put metadata associated with a web application. Developers can store information that includes: Name of Web Application Web Icons and Image Links App launch URL Web Configuration Data Default Orientation of Web App Display Option Settings Every metadata here is vital if you ever want an app to be easily added to the home screen alongside other native apps. WebAssembly On PWAs, WebAssembly helps a pre-compiled code to run efficiently in a web browser at great speed. Hence, libraries written in languages such as C can join web apps without hassle. Because of the enormous cost involved in passing data from JavaScript to WebAssembly, its near-term uses will focus on number-crunching rather than the complete application. Data storage You can execute PWA contexts in different scenarios. So, you would need to ensure you store a majority of long-term internal state such as the user data in your web store. According to Wikipedia, Web Storage is a W3C standard API that enables key-value storage in modern browsers. The API comprises two objects, sessionStorage (that enables session-only storage that gets wiped upon browser session end) and localStorage (that enables storage that persists across sessions). Service workers A service worker is a web worker that sets into play a programmable network proxy that can respond to web/HTTP requests of the key document. This worker can check the availability of a remote server while caching content when that server is available. This way, it will present that content as a functional document. Service workers, like any other web workers, work separately from the main document context. Service workers take care of all push notifications while harnessing data in the background, performing cache or retrieve resource requests, intercepting network requests and downloading centralized updates independently of the document that registered them, even when that document is not loaded. All service workers follow through the three-step life cycle of Registration, Installation, and Activation. Registration communicates the browser the location of the service worker to prepare for installation while Installation happens during a lack of a service worker installed in the browser for the web app, or if there is an update to the service worker. In summary, activation happens when all PWAs pages are closed, hence, there is no conflict between the old version and the updated one. With this life cycle, maintaining consistency in
Twitter Ads: Everything You Need To Know
If you are a Twitter user with an interest in running Twitter ads, but without a clue on how to go about it, you have come to the right place—post. Here, we will give you a guide to teach you how to create and optimize successful Twitter ads—from setting up an account to running effective ad campaigns on Twitter. What are Twitter Ads? Twitter Ads provides an opportunity for companies and users to promote tweets, accounts, and trends to unequivocally increase traffic, and gain relevance or branding. There are three types of Twitter Ads, each of them based on different goals. Promoted Tweets These ads look just like regular tweets, except that they are labeled “promoted” at the bottom. They would appear in the regular Twitter feeds of users who might not be following you yet. Promoted Tweets are a way to grow engagement and enlarge your reach to a wider group of users outside your follower base. Promoted Accounts Promoted Accounts are intended to help brands become more visible and increase their numbers of followers. These ads are displayed in several locations on Twitter, including in the “who to follow” box on the homepage, search results feed, and on the home Twitter. Your Promoted Account ads target Twitter users whose interests align with your brand. This way, you might gain followers who actively engage with your content. All of the ads are labeled “promoted” just underneath the post so users can distinguish them from other content on their feeds. Promoted Trends Promoted Trends appear at the top of the trending topics list in the trends box on Twitter. They, also, clearly bear the “promoted” tag. However, these ads look exactly like other trending topics, and users can interact with them in the same ways. While Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts target particular users, Promoted Trends are visible to every user during their promotion period, including on the Twitter mobile app. Promoted Trends encourage people to discuss your business with a particular hashtag. Further Reading: LinkedIn Ads: Everything You Need to Know About How To Run Twitter Promotions When you want to run Twitter promotions, you must ensure you have the right setup so your promotions can yield a great dividend for you. In doing this, you need to: #1. Optimize Your Profile It is most prudent that your profile on Twitter be optimized even before you get started. It’s futile to invest in advertising when your Twitter profile is bland, and you don’t share engaging content. You should also utilize the space for URLs to promote your brand. Develop your bio, and stay real when you talk about your business. Ensure your recognizable photo for your brand as a profile picture. Lastly, and most importantly, keep your Twitter account updated, engaging, and active. #2. Set Up Your Twitter Ads Account If you’ve never used Twitter ads before, you’ll have to set up an account. All you’d have to do is log into your Twitter account, then go to ads.Twitter.com. Enter your country and time zone, then click Let’s go. This takes you to Twitter Ads Manager and its many features, sort of like tracking your advertising campaigns and analyzing metrics. #3. Define Your Objectives To choose the objective for your ads, Twitter lets you select from the following options: Awareness Reach: If you want the maximum number of people to see your Promoted Tweet. You’d get to pay per 1,000 impressions. In-stream video views: If you want to run a short video ad at the start of videos from Twitter’s premium content partners. You’d have to pay for each video view. Consideration Video views: If you want people to watch your videos or GIFs. You’re billed for each video view. App installs: You’re billed for each app install if you want people to install your app. Website clicks or conversions: You’d get to pay per click if you want people to go to your website. Engagements: If you want to maximize engagement with your Promoted Tweets. You’re billed per engagement, but only on the initial engagement with each user. Followers: If you want to build your Twitter audience. You’re billed for each new follower you get. Conversion App re-engagements: If you want people who already have your app to open and use it. You’re charged per app click. #4. Configure Your Campaign When you have selected the objective of your Twitter ad campaigns, you can start creating your ad. Start by choosing a name for your campaign then, choose how to pay for it, set your campaign budget, and choose whether to start the campaign right away or schedule it for later. Now, that brings us to the next question: How much do Twitter ads cost? It depends on you. There’s no minimum budget to advertise on Twitter, so Twitter ads cost as much or as little as you like. The budget you set on the screen is the total amount you can afford to pay. Once you’ve made your selections, move on to the ‘NEXT’ stage. #5. Create Your Ad Group For your first Twitter ads campaign, you’ll probably want to start with one ad group. But as you get more confident with Twitter ads, split up your campaign into categories to target different audiences, use different creatives, or test different budgets and timing. Choose the tweets that will be part of your campaign. Ensure you are creative when you develop your content so your Twitter ads are impressive. Further Reading: TikTok Ads: Everything You Need to Know About #6. Select Your Audience Choose the target audience of your Twitter ads. To do this, you must know well who your ideal client is. You can choose among different options such as the location that you want to reach, the age, gender, and language of your targeting audience. And also, the target audience depending on the specific device they use to access Twitter. The ‘Audience features’ section allows you to target your ad to users based on particular