Website building platform Duda already makes creating feature-rich, responsive, and optimized websites easy. It features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that allows even non-coders to customize designs and enable features such as commenting, blogging, and ecommerce on their websites.
To help users add even more functionality, Duda recently unveiled the addition of its App Store to its site builder. Through this new feature, users can now instantly subscribe to top software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and seamlessly integrate them to their websites.
This could greatly benefit SaaS companies and design agencies who may need easy and cost-effective means to extend their websites' capabilities and be guaranteed that the integrations indeed work.
Establishing an online presence
Customers are shifting more of their activities online, and they demand that businesses to have a digital presence. Up to 70 to 80 percent of users research a company first before reaching out. Because of this, having a website has become absolutely essential in today's business landscape. Yet, only two-thirds of small businesses in the US have websites.
In addition, users also judge businesses based on their websites. Customers demand websites to be fast, intuitive, and help them accomplish what they want to do, whether it is to find specific information, to contact the business, or to purchase a product or service. They also want sites to display well across different devices from desktops to smartphones.
However, as younger, more tech-savvy generations become the dominant buying demographic, users are also demanding more from company websites. They want to be able to perform more tasks through websites and be offered richer user experiences.
To deliver such an experience, site owners can choose to design their sites to truly function as web apps and develop them from scratch. Unfortunately, this is often out of reach for SMBs. Smaller operations typically have limited budgets to earmark for such projects.
As a way to augment their technical and financial limitations, SMBs often resort to engaging design agencies to build such capable websites. These companies are highly specialized to help businesses get sites up and running at the shortest time possible. In turn, design agencies have adopted site builders like Duda to help them design, develop, and customize sites at a pace and scale that meets such a large demand.
Integrating SaaS apps
Due to the evolving tastes and expectations of customers, site owners and design agencies now face the challenge of extending the functionalities that their sites have. Fortunately, SaaS apps can deliver these additional functionalities.
However, integrating these apps can also be a technical challenge. Each SaaS app typically would have its own unique application programming interface (API) that other developers can use to link their systems together. Even for experienced developers in agencies, understanding each and every API and writing customized code to make their own system work with an API can be time-consuming.
Duda looks to solve these concerns by introducing its App Store feature. Users can simply select and purchase access to a SaaS app and the app will automatically be installed and integrated on the site.
Duda's App Store features a carefully curated lineup of SaaS apps. Currently, the store features the following apps:
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vCita is a comprehensive business management platform aimed at SMBs that digitizes and automates key business processes.
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Uberall is a location marketing solution that allows businesses to improve their visibility.
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AudioEye is an advanced accessibility solution that makes it easy for persons with disabilities to consume content on web pages.
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Localeze is a business listing syndication service that publishes a company's details across various listings, search engines, and mapping applications to help it get found online.
In the near future, Duda looks to add more best-of-breed SaaS apps to the store to allow more functionality to be made available to users.
Helping smaller sites compete
Expectations from today's customers have swung the balance to favor larger operations that can afford to pack their websites with attractive content and functionalities. As such, SMBs and design agencies can greatly benefit from developments like Duda's app store.
SaaS app integration equips websites with more complex features that can go toe-to-toe with bigger websites. Through richer experiences, their sites can then attract and engage users better, boost their credibility, and help them convert more leads.
These functionalities can be enabled without having to make exorbitant investments. Design agencies can avoid allocating necessary resources to focus on integration work, allowing them to pass on savings to their own customers. This kind of spending flexibility allows these businesses to allocate more of their capital toward other important matters such as product development, marketing, and customer support.
