How to Maximize User Engagement and Retention of Mobile App

It’s always thankful to you that you have done a mobile app for your business to reach mobile users. The success of your mobile app always depends on the user engagement and retention. Getting people to download mobile app is not a big deal but keeping them engaging with the app is much more required to retain and generate revenue.

Mobile App engagement and retention are two different metrics which provides the real insight of app success. Low engagement and retention of apps lead failure to business but high engagement and retention help in business growth.

Mobile app engagement is the activities of users on your app after downloading and user retention is the percentages of users who are returning back to your app within three months of their download time or from the first session.

How to Maximize User Engagement and Retention of Mobile App

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Conclusion:

User engagement is the primary factor of the mobile app. To maximize the retention and engagement you need to come up with creative ideas and these should be properly implemented by your mobile app developer.

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Strategy That Makes Enterprise Mobile App Development Easy

Both mobile app and mobile app development is growing like wildfire, huge business and personal requirements are looking forward to the strategy that makes Enterprise Mobile Application easy.

By using enterprise apps by your employee, you can get  an extra 240 hours of work each year.

Thorsten Heins

Smartphones and Mobile systems are important in the postmodern era. It is a small yet potent device that is omnipresent with almost all spheres in the daily routines. Whether for grocery shopping, searching for a food outlet or getting the right birthday present. 

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With the present day apps which were known until a few years ago, it has become a necessity more than a choice. So much that you can observe a visible synergy between people’s behavior and with the capabilities of their mobiles. The increasing use of smartphones with portable devices has completely changed the way of communication with enterprise software solutions.

The opportunity level is much higher and you would be able to reach your target audience. Both startups and enterprises are rushing to mobile app development to reach to their segment of users.

According to a report by Statista, in 2021 there were 276.8 million people in the U.S who accessed the internet by using mobile devices. Whereas in 2023, it is expected to reach 287 million mobile internet users. At present more than 83% of the U.S populations are mobile internet users.

US Internet User by Device

Users are spending 90% of their time in Mobile Apps alone.

User Time Spent on Mobile Apps

Both play store and app store are loaded with millions of amazingly featured mobile apps. You can find more than 2.8 million apps in the play store and 2.2 million apps in the App store.

Smartphone Users

(Source Statista and TUNE)

App Downloads

(Source Statista and TUNE)

With the growth of mobile use and app downloads, mobile app revenue has also grown up.

Even in the black Fridays mobile apps are generating revenues, In 2015 – global mobile app revenue was about $70 billion; in 2016 this number reached $88 billion and 2020 the expected mobile app revenue is expected to cross $180+ billion. That’s big.

Let’s have a look

Global Mobile App Revenue

(Source: businessofapps.com/data/app-revenues)

“Mobile apps are becoming the primary way that users across all demographics access and activate content, services, commerce, and critical business applications. This turns up the pressure on organizations to anchor business applications on mobile platforms. It’s clear that enterprises no longer consider mobility the laPeggy Annest step toward implementing a business application.”

Peggy Anne Salz, Lead Analyst, MobileGroove

 

 

Mobile App must be formulated, well thought over and built to reach a wider customer base and should be friendlier in mobility.

Because users are not always the same and they do not always stick to using the same device and same connection.

Mobility applications with Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP) development cycle can solve the enterprise level problems.

So now a question might come to your mind –“Is your developer adopting the MEAP rules with mobility technology to develop your enterprise mobile app?”

Here are the basic rules;

  • Must be compatible with different mobile applications
  • Must be compatible with different mobile operating systems
  • Compatible to integrate with different back-end data sources

Enterprise mobile app helps you to be connected and updated with your team or working networks. Data can be accessed anytime through your mobile device and allow your team or employees to access date through their personal devices instead of providing them company smart phone.

Personal devices can safely and easily manage enterprise mobile apps and this is cost effective for companies and not to invest more in smartphones, laptops etc.

So, are you looking to develop enterprise mobile app for your business?

The idea is not bad to go for an enterprise mobile app but you need to adopt the right strategy to get the things done in the right way. You need experienced team or dedicated developers with high level of security for development.

At Andolasoft we have delivered some of the most awesome mobile apps by utilizing our experience and knowledge with most comprehensive enterprise mobile app strategy to simplify your entire business process.

Andolasoft Mobile App Devlopment Process

Our objective is to provide mobility solutions which not only save your money but also save your time.

Let’s have a look at the – Strategies for enterprise mobile app development

1. Annalise Your Product Or Service Matrices:

Before taking any decision, you need to analyze your user and customer behavior towards your product and how they are responding to it.

You need to deep-dive with your mobile users and if you are a SaaS application development company, analyse how your product is used by various devices, operating system and the usage part, and from where users are churning out.

2. Develop A Baseline Standard

Once you have a mindset for the development after knowing the necessity of an app, you need to prepare a standard baseline against your planning. This will tell you the future of your app development process.

You don’t know what is hot in the market right now and what will be in the next future. So, time to do some research on how the industry is moving.

I am sure; this will surely help you to prepare a standard baseline for your app.

3. Prepare Complete Road-map

Roadmap gives you a clear vision with various steps and processes to reach your goal. Technologies are changing day by day and people prefer to get acquainted with smart features.

Your present app features may not come to picture in next two years or the features might have become obsolete.

This also helps your mobile app developer to make sure plan-out and put algorithms that are flexible enough and can quickly adapt to new features in new devices.

Roadmap can also show you the approximate resources, their skill you need and the development time that would be required at the very said time.

4. Collect Feedback

Gathering feedback from users and your customer about your product, always helps to develop a better app according to the need.

The smart way of gathering feedback is, inviting your existing customer to use your product at each step of your development process. They will love to use it and will let you know there feedback on your product.

5. Start Communication To Build Foundation

Mobile trends are changing each week.

You need to very closely monitor your user’s activity and all your matrices. This creates opportunity for a direct communication with your users. To keep connected them with your app, ask their problems, what their difficulties are, what they are thinking about your app and what new feature will help them to manage their jobs etc., better.

Collecting info in regular basis can deploy your flexible code to latest features helping you to scale.

6. Employee On-boarding

With an enterprise application development enhances the on-boarding process. The app mange all the information regarding staff certification, and saves time and efforts.

7. Supply Chain Control

The Mobile applications for companies deal with many supply chains that deal with many features for accurate planning, managing transportation and courier’s work.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

LEARN MORE

With the business enterprise applications you can optimize the supply chain management and save lots of money.

Conclusion

Development of enterprise mobile apps is not easy for everyone.

It needs solid experience and knowledge to catch ‘n’ understands the exact requirement and guide the app development according to it.

It’s not very easy to gather information or feedback for newly launched products.

The enterprise mobile app graph is reaching new heights. Looking for help!  Consult With Us Now.

How To Install, Setup And Implement NodeJS In PHP Application

What Is NodeJS?

Typically in web response paradigm, the client always initiates communication, but with the help of NodeJS now both the client and server can initiate communication, allowing them to exchange data freely.

In simple words, after a database update the client needs to request the server to get the latest data. But using NodeJS, a client can send the updated data to NodeJS and the NodeJS will distribute the data across all the clients. So, no need to initiate request by each client to the server to get the latest data.

Where We Can Use NodeJS?

Below are the few examples where you can get the best out of Node.js,

  • A counter which updates after a record insert into database.
  • Show real-time activity like Twitter or Facebook.
  • Implement Desktop notification to notify users about what others are doing.
  • You can build a chatting tool using the non-blocking, event-driven I/O paradigm of NodeJS

Install And Setup NodeJS

  1. Install NodeJS and NPM
  2. Install socket.io using NPM
  3. Install Forever

Run the below notification.js file forever using the “Forever”. (it should not stop)

notification.js

var fs = require('fs');
/* If you are using SSL, uncomment the below lines*/
/*
var options = {
    key: fs.readFileSync('/var/www/html/YOUR_CERTIFICATE_FOLDER/your_project_key.key'),
    cert: fs.readFileSync('/var/www/html/YOUR_CERTIFICATE_FOLDER/your_project_crt.crt'),
    ca: fs.readFileSync('/var/www/html/YOUR_CERTIFICATE_FOLDER/your_project_ca-bundle.ca-bundle')
};
var app = require('https').createServer(options, handler);
*/

var app = require('http').createServer(handler); // For non-ssl server
var io = require('socket.io').listen(app);
app.listen(3002);
function handler (req, res) {
	res.writeHead(200);
	res.end("Welcome to socket.io.");
}
/** This section is for receiving and sending message **/
var Room;
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
	socket.on('subscribeTo', function (data) {
		if(Room){
			socket.leave(Room);
		}
		Room = data.channel;
		console.log('Connecting client to: '+data.channel);
		socket.join(data.channel);
	});
	socket.on('iotoserver', function (data) {
		console.log('here we are in action event and data is: \n-----------------------------------------------------');
		//var dataJSON = JSON.parse(data);
		//socket.broadcast.emit(dataJSON.channel, { message: 'A new socket added and sending message.' });
		socket.broadcast.to(data.channel).emit('iotoclient', { message: data.message });
		//io.sockets.in('game').emit('message', 'cool game');
		console.log(data);
	});
});

NOTE: Your Node.js should run with the port “3002”. Try to use another sub-domain/domain to call your Node.js server. Another server is always a good option.

Implement NodeJS In Your Application

Use Elephant.io (a socket.io client) to send message to NodeJS.
Get the ElephantIO package from, https://github.com/Wisembly/elephant.io/tree/master/src
You need the Client.php and the AbstractPayload.php file only.

<?php
use ElephantIO\Client as ElephantIOClient;
include("ElephantIO/Client.php");

$elephant = new ElephantIOClient('http://www.your-node-server.com:3002', 'socket.io', 1, false, false, true);
$elephant->setHandshakeTimeout(1000);
$elephant->init();
$elephant->send(
ElephantIOClient::TYPE_EVENT, null, null, json_encode(array('name' => 'iotoserver', 'args' => array('channel' => 'my_first_channel', 'message' => 'my message to all the online users')))
	);
$elephant->close();
?>

Put this JavaScript in the page, where you want to receive the real-time notification

<script src="http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/socket.io/0.9.16/socket.io.min.js"></script>
<script>
try{
  var client = io.connect('http://www.your-node-server.com:3002');
  
  client.on('connect',function (data) {
  	client.emit('subscribeTo', { channel: 'my_first_channel' });
  });
  
  client.on('iotoclient', function (data) {
    alert(data.message);
  });
} catch(e){
	console.log('Socket ERROR\n');
	console.log(e);
}
</script>

See Also: Creating a custom handler session in CakePHP 2.x

Are you looking to Install, setup and implement NodeJS in your PHP application? We are here to help you. We have experienced NodeJS developers to provide all types of JavaScript solutions. Let’s discuss

Like this blog? I’d love to hear about your thoughts on this. Thanks for sharing your comments.

5 Google Services To Help You To Reach Your Business Goal

Every single company or organization has certain goals or objectives. If you are an entrepreneur, then the biggest concern for you is to achieve your organization’s goal.

These goals may vary from organization to organization. Some common business goals are making profit by selling products or service, brand promotion, client retention and so forth.

Here are the top 5 Google products or services those can help you to achieve your business goals.

Marketing_Cart

Google AdWords :

For us Google AdWords is the first thing that come to our mind for advertising our services or products for bigger audience through search/display medium.

According to recent survey more than 2 billion people use Google search and as per Double Click Ad Planner, advertiser can reach to 83% of unique Internet users around the world through Display network.

These numbers are self-sufficient to explain why you should consider Adword paid marketing for your business.

You can pass your message to your potential customer through text, image, video or other rich media Ad medium.

Google Analytics:

This is definitely one of the best API released by Google to give you the insight of business. If you are a business owner, and you are looking for key insights of your business, which may help you in decision making process then you can’t undermine the power of Google Analytics.

You can see from where you get traffic, where did you losing your visitors, what are they searching for, which medium gives you better ROI and lots more.

This is without a doubt helps you to give better online experience to your visitors and to transform them to your potential customers. It has both free and premium versions.

YouTube:

Video is an excellent medium to raise awareness, drive traffic to your site and also helps to generate lead and sales for your business.

YouTube is the largest online video sharing site. According to YouTube, every month, more than one billion people visit YouTube and watch over six billion hours of YouTube videos.

So to reach such a huge customer base through such a powerful medium must be in your marketing list. Also YouTube provides powerful analytic tools that help you to check how your videos can perform and what you can do better.

Besides that you can promote your YouTube videos through AdWords for Video campaign management tool.

AdMob:

Mobile or smartphones has created new revolution in the advertising world. What do you want more than to connect with your visitors in 24X7 basis?

These screens may look small but opportunities they generate is really hard to match and AdMob gives a stage where you can grab those opportunities.

You can promote your apps to countless smartphone and tablet users across the AdMob network; monetize your apps with ads from over a million Google advertisers worldwide, and lots more.

Wildfire by Google:

Wildfire is social marketing software acquired by Google in 2012 for $350 Million.

This acquisition becomes the blessing for an enterprise, who wants to create attractive and interactive social media campaigns, run social ads, and measure social ROI easily and effectively.

This an ideal tool if you want to incorporate social media marketing in your marketing strategy; however most of the features available in Wildfire are not free.

Today we share few products or services of Google that you can include in your marketing strategy.

Apart from this you can consider Google Merchant (highly recommended by considering its increasing popularity), Double Click program, Google My Business and many more.

See Also: Advantages and Disadvantages of Hiring Remote or Virtual Team

Andolasoft is a leading web and mobile app development company. If you are looking for any types of assistance in application development, business Intelligence, AWS or cloud hosting then please send a request and we will reach you.

I hope you enjoyed this topic and this list is definitely incomplete without your suggestions and feedback. So feel free and share your comment below.

Identify Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerabilities Threat

Cross-site-scripting_xss

Do you know that almost every website or application has some security flaws which make them vulnerable to the possibility of being hacked or attacked. There are certain group, which are known as black hat hackers, take advantage of this security flaws and try to access or steal sensitive data, redirecting file and even shut down that application and lot more. There are various such types of vulnerabilities and one of them is Cross Site Scripting or alias ‘XSS’.

According to a recent survey conducted by White Hat Security, Cross Site Scripting remain top in the virus list in 2014. It happens when a web application accumulates data from a user which might be malicious, and then stores input in a data store for later use. Entered input that is stored is not correctly separated. Malicious data will be displayed to be part of the website and run within the user’s browser under the web application.

What attackers can do with this type of vulnerability?

  • Hack other browsers
  • Steal sensitive data viewed by application users
  • Fake damaging the appearance of the application
  • Direct delivery of browser-based work excessively hard and lots more.

Stored XSS does not need a malicious link to be exploited. A successful exploitation occurs when a user visits a page with a stored XSS. The following phases relate to a normal stored XSS attack scenario:

  • Attacker stores vicious code into the vulnerable page
  • User authenticates in the application
  • User visits vulnerable page
  • Vicious code is executed by the user’s browser

See Also: Serious threats from Heartbleed Bug

As a Web tester, I know that the technological foundation of Web applications consists of HTTP and HTML. The HTTP protocol is the delivery transport for HTML, the code used to layout and form the Web page.
Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities exist when a Web application that accepts user input through HTTP requests such as a GET or a POST and then redirected to display inputs somewhere in the output HTML code.

System testing or Black Box testing to identify stored XSS vulnerabilities

Input Forms
The first step is to identify all points where user input is stored into the back-end and then displayed by the application. User input can be found in the following sections:

  • User Profile page: The application allows the user to edit or change profile details such as first name, last name, picture & address, etc.
  • Online Shopping: The application allows the user to store items into the shopping cart which can then be reviewed later
  • File Management System: Applications where there is a option to upload files
  • Application settings/preferences: Options to set or allow users profile
  • Blog: If the blog gives permission to user for comments in the application
  • Log: Stores some users input into logs of the application

HTML code Analyze
Input stored by the application is normally used in HTML tags, but it can also be found as part of JavaScript content. At this stage, it is to understand if input is stored and how it is positioned in the context of the page.The pen-tester should also investigate differently through which the application receives and stores users input.
Example: Email id stored data in index1.php

In this case, the tester needs to find a way to inject code outside the <input> tag as below:

[sourcecode language=”html”]<input class="inputbox" type=text" name="email" size="40" value="johndoe@gmail.com"> MALICIOUS CODE <!-/>[/sourcecode]

Testing for Stored XSS

This involves testing the input validation and filtering controls of the application. Basic injection examples in this case:

[sourcecode language=”plain”]johndoe@gmail.com"><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" data-wp-preserve="%3Cscript%3Ealert(document.cookie)%3C%2Fscript%3E" data-mce-resize="false" data-mce-placeholder="1" class="mce-object" width="20" height="20" alt="&lt;script&gt;" title="&lt;script&gt;" />
johndoe@gmail.com%22%3E%3Cscript%3Ealert(document.cookie)%3C%2Fscript%3E[/sourcecode]

Ensure the input is submitted through the application. This normally involves disabling JavaScript if client-side security controls are implemented or modifying the HTTP request with a web proxy such as Web Scarab. It is also important to test the same injection with both HTTP GET and POST requests. The above injection results in a popup window containing the cookie values.

 

The HTML code following the injection:

[sourcecode language=”html”]<strong><input class="inputbox" type="text" name="email" size="40" value="aaa@aa.com"><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" data-wp-preserve="%3Cscript%3Ealert(document.cookie)%3C%2Fscript%3E" data-mce-resize="false" data-mce-placeholder="1" class="mce-object" width="20" height="20" alt="&lt;script&gt;" title="&lt;script&gt;" /></strong>[/sourcecode]

The input is stored and the XSS payload is executed by the browser when reloading the page. If the input is escaped by the application, testers should test the application for XSS filters. For instance, if the string “SCRIPT” is replaced by a space or by a NULL character then this could be a potential sign of XSS filtering in action. Many techniques exist in order to evade input filters.

If you find the above process is little bit complicated or you need some sort of support then don’t worry you can get a free testing report through our accomplished QA engineers.

Hope you liked it. Go ahead and post your comments what you think about this?

Tips To Increase Your App Download Through App Store Optimization

App Store Optimization (ASO) is the process of improving the visibility of a mobile app (such as an iPhone, iPad, Android, or Windows Phone app) in an app store (such as iTunes or Google Play or windows marketplace).

App store optimization is just like search engine optimization to improve the app findings by users in an app store.

App store optimization includes the process of ranking highly in an app store’s search results and top charts rankings.

Ranking higher in search results and top charts will help in more downloads for an app

On-Page optimization:

  • App Title:

    It plays a vital role in ASO. The app title should clearly describes the app and what it does, but it should be short.

    Too long app titles are get truncated, this kills user experience.

  • App Description:

    This is the second most important part of ASO. This is the place where you sell your app based on the great features!Make sure to keep this section short and concise.

    As it is going to use in user’s cell phones and not on their desktop monitors.

  • App Logo:

    This is the way you can express what your app is all about.

    So the app logo should be designed by a professional designer to create a stunning app logo. This part should not be overlooked.

  • App Screenshot:

    Screenshots should be clear and with high resolution. You should highlight the best parts of your app with multiple screenshots.

    If possible add short text/explanation to the screenshots.

  • Category:

    Make sure to categorize your app appropriately. As a lot of searchers jump straight into specific categories if they are looking for something.

    There is also a  secondary category option in which your app fits into two categories, but the primary category does act as the most important.

  • Keywords:

    You need to know which keywords are relevant and used very often by your targeted users,  to improve your search rankings. It is very useful to monitor the other competitors.

Off-Page Optimization:

  • Overall App Ratings:

    This is an important factor for ASO. If most of the people who downloaded the app gave 5 out of 5 stars, then it must be a great app.

    Ratings are also a direct reflection of your app’s performance measurement – a great app will get great ratings. The front page placement likely to rely on a combination of downloads, ratings, reviews and Google pluses.

  • App Reviews:

    Like ratings, reviews play an important role in ASO. You want as many app users to leave out genuine reviews of your app.

    The conversion rate will grow depending upon the number of the favorable reviews your app receives.

    Always keep track of the users’ reviews and try to improve your app based on the feedbacks.

  • Total App Downloads:

    This certainly affects searcher physcology. If the app has good download number, it creates the impression of being popular, then the chances download of the particular app will be higher.

Verdict

Around 63% of apps are discovered via app store searches. ASO is the most used method for discovering and downloading new apps from the app stores.

So to boost your app’s search ranking and downloading make sure to follow these quick tips of ASO. ASO is just like a secret weapon to increase your app’s visibility, ranking and overall success.

Also See: How to monetize your Android application through In-App Billing?

You can also check out some of our free apps.

How did you like this blog? Please send me your comments, if any.