Web apps are becoming a popular tool for business of all industries and sizes – and for good reason. They can help streamline your operations, enhance user experiences, and drive overall growth for your company.
But to be truly helpful, your web app needs to be able to adjust with your company. As your operations expand and your goals become larger, your web app needs to keep up. If it doesn’t, it can become more of a liability than an asset.
As your web app gets used more, the overall performance has to be set up to handle the increase in user demand. A truly scalable web application is built with the intention of growing with your business over time, increasing your return on investment for the time and money you spend on it.
To ensure your web app is truly scalable, here are five things to keep in mind when building it:
Think Long Term from Day One
When you start making plans for your web app, it’s easy to focus solely on where you are at the time. You have challenges you’re hoping to overcome, features you need included, and are thinking of how you’re going to make it all come together in one software.
But this mindset can lead to problems in the future, because you’re only considering where your business is at the time of development. Instead, you want to plan on how to make it successful now and years down the road when your company is in a different place in terms of demand, popularity, and overall size.
When building a roadmap for your web app, consider how certain features will be used over time. If you’re compiling data, how much storage will you need to hold all that information right now? What about in 5 years? Same with product listings. You might only be selling 20 things now, but how big will your selection be in a few months or years? And what features might your users eventually need to have an easier time navigating your site?
Asking these questions and putting solutions in place during the initial development will save you time, money, and stress later on because you’ll already be setup to handle these challenges.
Optimize Your System for Growth
Similar to thinking about your future in your initial web app plans, when you start creating frameworks and get into development, you need to do so with optimization in mind. This impacts how the system works, the user experience, and how well it can handle growth as time goes on.
Whether it’s choosing a more scalable database rather than your original system, planning for higher storage options than you currently need, caching, indexing, or anything of the sort, your web app needs to be optimized for where you want – and plan – to be in future rather than where you are currently.
Utilizing different optimization techniques will allow your web app to operate fully at any capacity – including as you grow and have a higher load to handle – making it more user-friendly, stronger, and a better long-term investment.
Prioritize Efficient Code
At its core, the backbone of your web app is the code used to develop it. Having clean, efficient code is essential in ensuring your web app is scalable because it dictates how the software is set up, how it runs, and ultimately what it can handle.
Part of prioritizing the code of your web app includes taking the time to do continuous testing and performance monitoring to make sure it works the way it should at all levels. Checking for places that bottleneck with too much traffic, data that can’t be entered properly, or any piece of the puzzle that gets overwhelmed too easily gives you an idea of where the code might need to be updated.
Figuring these things out early and when the load is lighter will help you avoid needing to re-code and re-configure parts of the web app down the line when it has no choice but to handle a higher capacity.
Monitor, Test, & Adjust
While it may seem obvious that you need to run tests and performance checks while building your web app, ongoing monitoring and maintenance after being live is just as important – and easily forgotten about.
You need to see how the web app is performing in real time and use those insights to adjust your software as needed. Maybe there are pages that start lagging when too many users are trying to load them, or your data entry slows down because logs are getting full. Seeing that information and adapting in real time can keep those small hiccups from becoming major issues.
Part of monitoring also includes listening to user feedback. There might be issues that don’t stick out during routine tests or data analysis, but if multiple people are complaining about something, there’s likely an issue somewhere that needs to be addressed. Fixing the problem quickly makes your web app more engaging and ready for use.
Partner with a Development Team
Working with experienced developers that understand the ins and outs of creating scalable web app solutions can make all the difference in the success of your project. Whether that means you have an expert internal team that can tackle it, or need to hire externally, you need someone who can anticipate your scalability needs early and ensure they are implemented correctly.
If you don’t have the bandwidth in house, working with a web app development company will give you the peace of mind that the people handling the framework, development, and maintenance of your web app are experts in this area. That means they can lead you down the right path, put the right tools in place, and ensure that your web app is set up for current and future success.
Web apps are a great tool for businesses in today’s digital-driven world. Whether it’s for internal use to help your company operate more proficiently or remotely, or a more public-facing software that is used by customers or audience members, web apps help make your company more efficient and engaging.
For them to be truly successful, they need to be scalable so they can support your growth over time. They should be seen as a long-term investment, rather than a one-off project so than can truly be a benefit to your business for years to come. Creating long-term plans, optimizing your software, having clean code, doing continuous monitoring, and partnering with the right developers can make all the difference in how successful your web app is.
How We Can Help
Hiring a web application development partner is a big decision for your business. At WePro, we strive to make the process easier for you by guiding you in the right direction based on your needs and being there for you every step of the way – from design and development, all the way through testing, going live, and long-term maintenance.
If you want to learn more about our web app services, or even just ask questions about how a web app could benefit your business, send us a message! We’ll help you get the answers you need and get you on the road to digital success.
