Category: Featured

Editor’s picks for the hero carousel

The State of Mobile App Usage in 2026
Every year the story gets clearer: users spend more time in apps and less time in browsers. The 2026 data confirms the trend is accelerating, not plateauing.

Key Statistics
- App time vs. browser time: Users spend 88% of their mobile time in native apps, up from 85% in 2023
- Average apps used daily: 9–10 apps, but users spend 90% of app time in their top 5
- App downloads: Global downloads exceeded 250 billion in 2025
- Mobile commerce: 73% of e-commerce transactions now happen on mobile, with apps converting 3x higher than mobile web
What This Means for Publishers

The numbers have a stark implication: if your content only exists in a browser, you’re competing for 12% of your readers’ mobile time. The other 88% is spent in native apps.

This doesn’t mean browsers are dying. It means browsers have become a discovery channel — users find content via search or social, consume it once, and leave. Apps are where habitual, return-visit behavior lives.

The Publisher App Gap

Large publishers — The New York Times, ESPN, BBC — have long had native apps with millions of active users. But the vast majority of mid-size and independent publishers still rely exclusively on mobile web. The gap isn’t because their audiences don’t want apps. It’s because building a native app was historically too expensive.

That cost barrier is disappearing. Platforms like PressNative make it possible for any WordPress publisher to have a native presence on the same app stores as the industry giants.

The Engagement Divide

Research consistently shows that app users are more engaged than mobile web users by every metric: session duration, pages per session, return visit rate, and conversion rate. For ad-supported publishers, this translates directly to revenue. For community-driven sites, it translates to loyalty.

The question for publishers in 2026 isn’t “should we have an app?” It’s “how long can we afford not to?”
February 18, 2026
Introducing PressNative: WordPress to Native App in Minutes
Today we’re launching PressNative, a platform that turns any WordPress site into a native mobile app for Android and iOS.

Why We Built This

We spent years building custom native apps for publishers. The process was always the same: months of development, tens of thousands of dollars, and a product that immediately fell out of sync with the WordPress site it was supposed to mirror.

Every publisher we worked with asked the same question: “Why can’t the app just pull from WordPress?”

Now it can.

How It Works

PressNative consists of three parts:
1. A WordPress plugin that exposes your content, branding, and layout through a structured REST API
2. Native app shells built with Jetpack Compose (Android) and SwiftUI (iOS) that consume the API and render everything natively
3. A Registry service that handles push notifications, analytics, and app management
You install the plugin, configure your branding and layout in the WordPress admin, and your app is ready. Content syncs in real time. No code changes. No app store resubmissions.

What’s Included
- Native performance: 60fps rendering with Jetpack Compose and SwiftUI — no WebView wrappers
- Push notifications: Send from your WordPress dashboard, target by platform and engagement
- Customizable branding: Theme presets or fully custom colors, typography, and logo
- Flexible layouts: Hero carousel, post grid, category navigation, page lists, ad placements
- Built-in analytics: Views, top content, device breakdown, push engagement
- Live preview: See your app in iPhone and Android device frames before going live
Who It’s For

PressNative is for any WordPress site with an audience worth retaining: news publishers, bloggers, community organizations, churches, local businesses, niche content creators. If you have readers who come back, they deserve a better experience than a mobile browser can offer.

We’re excited to put this in your hands. Install the plugin and see your content in a new light.
February 18, 2026
From Blog to App: A Food Blogger’s Journey to 50,000 Downloads
Sarah Kimura started her food blog “Salt & Season” on WordPress in 2020. By 2025, she had 200,000 monthly visitors, a thriving email list, and a problem: her readers wanted an easier way to access recipes while cooking.

The Spark

“People would email me asking for a recipe app,” Sarah said. “I looked into hiring a developer and got quotes between $40,000 and $80,000. For a food blog. That wasn’t realistic.”

She explored Progressive Web Apps but found the experience lacking — especially on iOS, where her majority audience lived. “It never felt like a real app. My readers could tell.”

Going Native with PressNative

Sarah installed PressNative and had a working app within a day. She organized her recipe categories (Weeknight Dinners, Baking, Meal Prep, Seasonal) and configured them in the app’s category list. Her hero carousel featured seasonal recipes with high-quality food photography.

“The branding tools let me match the app to my blog perfectly. Same colors, same logo, same feel — just native.”

What Drove Downloads

Sarah promoted the app through her existing channels: a pinned blog post, email announcement, Instagram stories with App Store links, and QR codes generated by the PressNative shortcode on her most popular recipe posts.

The real growth engine was push notifications. “When I publish a new Weeknight Dinner recipe on Tuesday, my readers get a notification. Open rates are around 52%. Email was around 22% and falling.”

By the Numbers
- 50,000+ downloads in 10 months
- 68% monthly active users
- Average session: 6.1 minutes (vs. 2.3 on mobile web)
- Ad revenue increase: 85% from in-app AdMob placements
Sarah’s Advice

“Don’t wait until you have a million readers. If people come back to your site regularly, they’ll download an app. The bar is lower than you think — they just need a reason. Push notifications are that reason.”
February 18, 2026
How a Local News Site Grew Engagement by 340% with PressNative
The Eastside Chronicle is a hyperlocal news site covering a mid-size metro area. With three full-time reporters and a WordPress site running since 2018, they had a loyal readership but a mobile problem: 65% of their traffic came from phones, but mobile sessions lasted half as long as desktop.

The Challenge

Editor-in-chief Marcus Dean saw the trend clearly. “Our readers were on their phones, but the experience wasn’t keeping them. We’d publish a breaking story, share it on Facebook, and get a spike — but those readers wouldn’t come back until the next Facebook share.”

Email newsletters helped, but open rates were declining and the turnaround time meant breaking news was already hours old by delivery.

The Solution

The Chronicle installed PressNative in March 2025 and launched their app on both stores within weeks. They configured a hero carousel featuring their “Featured” category and a post grid sorted by recency, giving the app a newspaper-front-page feel.

The critical feature: push notifications for breaking news. “When something happens, we publish in WordPress and our readers know about it in seconds,” Dean said.

The Results (After 6 Months)
- Session duration: 4.2 minutes (app) vs. 1.8 minutes (mobile web) — a 133% increase
- Return visits within 7 days: 72% of app users vs. 28% of mobile web users
- Push notification open rate: 48%, compared to 19% email open rate
- Overall mobile engagement: 340% increase in total time spent
- App installs: 8,200 in the first six months, with 61% monthly active
Key Takeaway

“The app didn’t change what we publish,” Dean said. “It changed how our readers experience it. Same stories, same WordPress workflow, completely different relationship with our audience.”
February 18, 2026
Push Notifications: The Engagement Channel You’re Ignoring
Every publisher has an email list. Most have social accounts. But how many have a push notification channel? If your answer is “not us,” you’re leaving your most powerful engagement tool on the table.

The Numbers Tell the Story

Average email open rates hover around 20% and continue to decline year over year. Social media organic reach has cratered — Facebook pages now reach 2–5% of their followers per post. Meanwhile, push notifications see 40–60% open rates on mobile, with most users engaging within minutes of delivery.

The difference is context. Email arrives in a crowded inbox hours after you send it. Social posts compete with an algorithmic feed. A push notification arrives on a lock screen at the moment you choose, with a direct tap to your content.

What Makes Push Effective for Publishers

Immediacy: Breaking news, new post alerts, and time-sensitive content reach readers in seconds, not hours. For news publishers, this is transformative.

Opt-in quality: Push subscribers are your most engaged users — they chose to install your app and accept notifications. This audience self-selects for loyalty.

No intermediary: Unlike social media or email, there’s no algorithm between you and your reader. Every subscriber sees every notification you send.

Push Done Right

Effective push notifications follow three principles:
1. Be relevant. Not every post warrants a push. Reserve notifications for your best content, breaking stories, and genuine value.
2. Be timely. Send during your audience’s active hours. A notification at 2 AM builds resentment, not engagement.
3. Be respectful. One to three notifications per day maximum. More than that and uninstall rates spike.
How PressNative Makes It Easy

PressNative’s push notification system lives in your WordPress dashboard. Send to all subscribers or target by platform (iOS/Android) and engagement recency. Track delivery and opens in the analytics dashboard. Optionally, auto-notify on every new publish.

Your readers installed your app because they value your content. Push notifications are how you honor that relationship with timely, relevant delivery.
February 18, 2026
Why Your WordPress Site Needs a Native Mobile App in 2026
If you run a WordPress site with a loyal audience, you’ve probably noticed a shift. More than 60% of your traffic comes from mobile devices, yet your mobile bounce rate is higher than desktop, session durations are shorter, and return visit rates are lower.

This isn’t a content problem. It’s a delivery problem.

The Mobile Browser Tax

Mobile browsers impose invisible costs on every visit. Your carefully crafted post competes with thirty open tabs, a cluttered bookmark list, and zero way to bring readers back once they leave. There’s no push notification. No home screen icon. No offline reading. No native scroll performance.

Even with a fast theme and optimized images, you’re fighting the browser itself.

What Native Apps Change

A native app puts your brand on the home screen — the most valuable real estate on any device. It delivers push notifications that cut through the noise with 4–7x the click-through rate of email. It loads content instantly with native rendering instead of parsing HTML and CSS on every visit.

For publishers, the metrics speak for themselves:
- 3x longer session durations compared to mobile web
- 2x higher return visit rates within 7 days
- 4–7x push notification engagement versus email open rates
- 40% lower bounce rates on article pages
The Cost Barrier Is Gone

Historically, native apps cost $50,000–$200,000 and months of development. That priced out every publisher except the largest. PressNative changes the equation: install a WordPress plugin, configure your branding, and your native app is ready for the App Store and Google Play.

Your content stays in WordPress. The app updates in real time. No rebuilds, no resubmissions, no developer dependency.

The Bottom Line

If your WordPress site has an audience worth retaining — whether that’s 1,000 readers or 1,000,000 — a native app is no longer a luxury. It’s the difference between renting attention in a browser and owning the relationship on a home screen.
February 18, 2026