Easily distribute your PWAs and get more exposure

Josh Sach

PWAs (progressive web applications) take the best of web technology and the best of native apps and meld them together. A quality PWA is a quality app. Many people would be surprised to learn that Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in the Microsoft Store today are currently PWAs. Development teams and business decision makers are choosing PWAs. So, what is all the buzz about?

Let’s dive right in…

The most valuable benefit of PWAs is that you can deliver a highly engaging “native app” experience, with minimal friction and cost. PWAs function naturally and integrate well within the Windows ecosystem. For example, PWAs, like other apps, may appear in your Windows application settings, start menu, taskbar, run in their own window, play audio in the background, and utilize push notifications. There are many more ways Windows is integrated with your PWA. In addition to seamless integration with Windows, PWAs offer a slew of performance capabilities that traditional websites would not have. PWAs have offline capabilities and utilize caching to always provide a great user experience. Finally, they also rely on a single codebase (your website) which makes maintaining, deploying, and updating code, fixing bugs, and delivering a consistent UI/UX seamless.

Building your PWA with PWA Studio

Now that you’re up to speed with all the amazing benefits of PWAs you might be asking yourself how do I get started? PWA Studio is a VSCode extension that superchargers your VS Code development environment for building Progressive Web Apps. Using the PWA Studio you can easily convert an existing web app into a PWA, generate a service worker, and audit your PWA to ensure it is app store ready and installable. That’s just the beginning. Learn more about all the amazing things you can do with PWA Studio.

Getting your PWA in the Microsoft Store

To get your PWA in the Microsoft Store, you simply package it and submit it for review. Packaging your application or site as a PWA is free, and so quick it can be done by your web engineers on their lunch break! PWAbuilder.com is a free tool that thousands of other companies and developers have used to package their PWAs.

Getting more customers for your PWA

The Microsoft Store on Windows is a trusted single location for customers to discover and install apps for their Windows PC. It is an excellent way to gain exposure and discoverability for your PWA – by getting it on a billion monthly active Windows devices. Once your PWA is live in the Store, you can take advantage of opportunities for promotion to build more awareness and drive acquisitions. In addition to discoverability, the Microsoft Store also relays trust to your customers by showing that you have passed Microsoft’s certification. Finally, publishing your PWA to the Microsoft Store gives you the opportunity to be featured on Store spotlight, top app lists, collections and of course through Store search, giving you and your products free exposure and marketing.