Convert Your Educational Website Into a Mobile App: Enhance Engagement and Drive Learner Retention

For online learning platforms, keeping learners engaged and ensuring they stick with your platform is a challenge every provider faces. As people’s lives get busier and attention spans shorter, developing a mobile app for your online learning platform has emerged as a real game-changer. 

In this article, we will show you the benefits of having a mobile app for your educational website and how easy and affordable it is to develop your own mobile app with MobiLoud.

Interested in learning more? Book a free demo now and get a walk through the process, plus a free preview of what your mobile app could look like!

Why You Should Build a Mobile App for Your Educational Website

Mobile apps offer convenience, personalization, and accessibility that can keep learners coming back for more. Let’s explore how building a mobile app can boost engagement and drive learner retention for your platform.

1. Learning on the Go = More Engagement

One of the biggest advantages of a mobile app is the ability to learn on the go. With a mobile app, learners can access courses anytime, anywhere, whether they’re commuting, on a lunch break, or relaxing at home. This flexibility makes it easier for learners to fit education into their busy schedules, which naturally increases their engagement with the platform.

When learners don’t have to sit down at a desktop or laptop to access their courses, they’re more likely to stay consistent with their studies. Whether it’s watching short videos, reading through lessons, or taking quizzes, the convenience of mobile access keeps learners interacting with your platform regularly.

2. Push Notifications Keep Learners Coming Back

Let’s face it... life gets in the way, and learners sometimes need a little reminder to stay on track. That’s where push notifications come in. A mobile app allows you to send gentle nudges, whether it’s reminding learners about upcoming assignments, notifying them of new courses, or encouraging them to continue a lesson they started.

These notifications bring learners back to the app and keep your platform top of mind. Plus, they can help break up larger tasks into smaller, more manageable ones, which can be less intimidating and encourage learners to keep moving forward with their courses.

3. Personalized Learning Experience

A mobile app offers plenty of opportunities to personalize the learning experience. For example, you can recommend courses based on a learner’s past activity, suggest skill-building exercises tailored to their interests, or offer progress updates to keep them motivated.

This level of personalization makes learners feel like the app is tailored specifically for them, which increases their connection to the platform. When users feel like they’re getting a customized experience, they’re far more likely to stay engaged and continue their learning journey with you.

4. Gamification: Make Learning Fun and Interactive

Learning doesn’t have to be dry or boring, and a mobile app is the perfect place to introduce gamification features that make the process more interactive and enjoyable. Whether it’s earning badges, completing challenges, or unlocking rewards for finishing lessons, gamification taps into people’s competitive instincts and makes learning more engaging.

These features keep learners motivated to achieve more, and the sense of accomplishment when they hit milestones encourages them to keep using the app. The more fun and rewarding you make the learning experience, the more likely users are to stick with your platform in the long term.

5. Offline Learning for Better Accessibility

Another big advantage of a mobile app is the ability to offer offline learning. Not everyone has access to a stable internet connection at all times, and being able to download course materials for offline use is a huge plus for learners.

Offline access means that learners can keep progressing through their courses even when they’re not connected to the internet, which reduces drop-off rates. When learners feel like they can keep learning no matter where they are or what their connectivity looks like, it increases their commitment to the platform.

6. Tracking Progress Keeps Learners Motivated

Mobile apps make it easy to integrate progress-tracking features, which are a great way to keep learners motivated. Showing users how far they’ve come in a course, how much time they’ve spent learning, and what they have left to accomplish can be powerful motivators.

When learners can see their progress in real-time, they’re more likely to stay engaged with the platform and complete their courses. Progress-tracking also gives learners a sense of achievement, which boosts their satisfaction with the learning experience and encourages them to stick around for more.

Wrapping It Up

Developing a mobile app for your online learning platform can make a huge difference in how learners engage with your content and stick around for the long haul.

From offering the flexibility to learn on the go to personalized experiences and gamified features, a mobile app can make learning more convenient, fun, and rewarding. Add in push notifications to keep learners on track and offline learning for better accessibility, and you’ve got a platform that keeps people coming back again and again.

Giving learners the tools they need to stay engaged (wherever they are) is key to building long-term loyalty and success for your online learning platform.

Now let’s move on to how you can develop your mobile app with MobiLoud.

How MobiLoud’s Online Learning Mobile App Builder Works

With MobiLoud, your app will be a full, live reflection of your mobile website. We strip away the browser tabs, and add a few small native mobile touches, such as navigation UI, a tab menu and splash screens. We then put together native code to allow your app to run in Android and iOS operating systems, and let you send native mobile push notifications.

Our approach has a number of advantages:

• It lets you quickly and easily go to market with an app, as you don’t need to rebuild or drastically redesign anything.
• Maintenance is much easier, since you’re using the same codebase for your site and your apps. When you update your site, your apps update automatically.
• All the features on your website, such as plugins, themes, widgets, integrations, payment gateways and any custom features will work in the app in the same way.
• There’s no coding, no technical knowledge needed from you or your team.
• You can be totally hands-off and launch with zero addition to your existing workflow.

Our full-service approach covers every part of the process. This includes:

• Development work to convert your site into apps and deploy it for Android and iOS.
• Configuring your app to ensure it feels fully native to the end user.
• Custom UI/UX tweaks to your mobile website to maximize your mobile user experience in both app and website.
• Submitting your app to the Apple and Google Play app stores, and handling all back-and-forths to ensure your app and listing meet their standards.
• Handling technical updates and maintenance for your app after launching.

The process starts with a kick-off call with one of our project managers. We’ll discuss your needs and what you want to get out of the project, and make sure MobiLoud is right for you.

From there, we take over to build and launch your apps, keeping you updated every step of the way. 

From start to finish, you can be live and in the app stores in less than a month, for a low-four figure investment, plus a guarantee that your app will be accepted into the app stores, so it’s completely risk-free.

Learn more about our pricing here.

Get Started and Launch Your Online Learning Mobile App in Under a Month

Launching a mobile app with MobiLoud is the best thing you can do to grow your business.

With little to no time investment required, a low upfront cost, and minimal cost and effort to maintain, achieving a positive ROI is easy, and you’ll get all the benefits of getting your brand in the app stores and increasing engagement and retention from your existing users.

Whether you’re ready to get started, or you just want to learn more about how MobiLoud can help you, schedule a free demo call with one of our experts today.