Accelerated Mobile Pages
What if I tell you that 1 second of delay in your webpage loading could cause you a sales loss of $2.5 million a year if your estimated sales in $100,000. You would have turned a blind eye to this statement if we were talking about the time, maybe five years ago, but in this world where people are so concerned about the loading speed that they tend to move away from the web page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
Today, site owners are looking forward to the faster search results, since Google has introduced mobile friendliness update. It is imperative of the fact it has become a crucial part of the SEO of any website and over that it boosts the search ranking factors. Nobody wants a hiccup while we read our favorite content or visit our favorite shopping website, rather it discourages the customer to visit that webpage again. Well, if such problems exist, what is the ultimate way to optimize the speed for mobile users?
The solution is Accelerated mobile pages or AMP.
As a result of the webmaster’s hypothesis, many marketers optimized their pages with AMP and they found that there was a positive impact on mobile search rankings. According to a study conducted by Google, the load time of the webpages was cut down by 15-85% after the promoters used AMP plugin.
The chances of conversion of mobile page visitor into a lead increase exponentially through AMP.
Now that we have a concise idea on what AMP can do, let’s understand the concept behind this cutting edge technology.
Accelerated Mobile Pages, is a dedicated initiative to improve the user experience on one side and optimizing the speed and readability on the other. It generally strips down a page to its basic structure by optimizing it to allow is to load quicker. A collaboration between Twitter and Google was the reason for the inception of AMP.
Furthermore, Google has been trying to pull more advertisers on its platform and it can only happen if the users would keep coming back on websites. They ask you to update your devices and the sole reason behind that initiative is that they want a much faster and better web experience to allow more publishers with their engagement activities.
How does this plugin work?
The AMP plugin performs the function called rendering. By that, it means that it renders your device pages much faster as it cuts down on HTML code tag manager aspect and simultaneously renders those only suitable for mobile users.
In a nutshell, some HTML code tag manager aspects those are supposed to slow down your page is eliminated and only that one’s those are required are used.
Listed below are a few more things you should know about this plugin:
– You are not allowed to use forms on AMP plugin pages
– Custom fonts are loaded separately for a better experience
– Use extensions those are AMP approved if you want to show videos on your webpage
– A minimalist version of CSS must be utilized in case you are adopting AMP
– Proper validation of AMP sites is required for them to function adequately
One the point you should note here is that we can optimize the readability and loading speed of the website, but the share-ability does not have equal stakes. Your social share buttons’ visibility may be jeopardized as the majority of them are made using the javascript and integration with AMP hampers the smooth processing. Having said that, there are multiple advantages associated with Accelerated Mobile Pages that would encourage you to consider it.
Advantages associated with AMP:
We have been talking about the Google page rankings and bounce rates. Bounce rates are correlated with the page ranking as the page with the low bounce rate is generally rewarded by Google through improvements in the search ranking of the webpage. More the page views on the website internally, lesser the bounce rate.
You must have observed the AMP versions of a website or mobile applications. For example, take a Facebook instant. It is a faster version of the Facebook app that takes too much time to load, where on instant, you can see the desired content much quicker.
1) Sacred Love for Content Marketers: Since more and more mobile phone visitors are getting aware of AMP, they have started to click on its version of the website or link which is marked by the green symbol. Google has included the AMP search results in the organic listings which have improved the user experience. Marketers are eyeing for AMP since they get more visitors and improved click-through rates which directly impacts the sales. They use this feature to stand as an outlier among the rest.
2) Flexibility in Ad support: As discussed earlier, the Javascript is eliminated, that means the hassle of sidebar, popups, header image and other unnecessary pointers are eliminated and what you get is a cleaner version of the website which can be optimized much better for the ad placement. Furthermore, the coding is 6x lighter, making display ads much flexible and delivery quicker. The ROI on the ad spend improves through this optimization.
3) Understanding Users: Tag manager analytics can be used to understand the visitor better by tracking which page they came from and where they headed. Essential elements like visitor counts, conversions, video tracking, etc. can be done using AMP.
4) Faster loading speed: This is the USP of Accelerated mobile pages that many publishers aspire to achieve. A second delay can lower the CTR by 3.50% and the page views could go down by 9.40%. This would result in an increase in bounce rate by 8.30%.
You can put all the world-class products on your website or amazing content to pull readers but if your website takes time to load, then all your effort would be in vain. The webpages are becoming faster every second and Google has come up with new algorithms and updates that would make your webpage even faster.
Conclusion
What’s stopping you?
AMP has emerged as a proven marketing technique helps you to go in line with what Google expects out of your website. In the coming time, we may see many crossovers between webpages and social media and with the upgradation currently going on in the algorithms of AMP, this truly stands out as the future of fast and targeted browsing.