10 Jul A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO ACCELERATED MOBILE PAGES (AMPS) – WHAT, HOW AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
A Beginner’s Guide to Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) – What, How and Everything In Between
- Mobile internet usage has grown at a steady rate to surpass desktop usage in recent years and Speed played an integral part in the performance of web pages under the AMP framework. As a result, Google introduced the mobile-first framework in 2015.
- The Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP framework has been controversial since beginning.
- Studies have shown that consumers are likely to abandon a page if it takes more than three seconds to load.
- Google says that AMP can soon become a ranking factor. After analysis, experts uncovered that pages that were optimized for AMP ranked better and faster.
- These pages also achieved high-conversion rates turning mobile page visitors into loyal customers.
What is Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)?
- The Accelerated Mobile Pages framework was a collaboration by both Google and Twitter.
- AMP optimized pages were introduced to compete with Facebook’s Instant Articles used for news on the mobile app.
- It was designed to optimize faster mobile pages. The framework takes pages that are already mobile-friendly and enhances them to load faster. To do this, AMP strips down the page to the basics.
- The project’s main aim was to help content publishers improve speed and readability mobile-friendly content.
How does the AMP plugin work?
- The AMP plugin cuts back on the HTML code tag manager aspect and renders them suitable for mobile users. The optimized HTML code allows your web pages to load faster.
- However, AMP will not be rendered if JavaScript is included in your mobile pages. You have to use a streamlined version of CSS.
- Since the publisher is not in control of AMP, they are not permitted to use the JavaScript library unless AMP provides. This is the only downside to AMP.
- For AMP optimized sites to work, they have to be appropriately validated.
- AMP plugin does not allow forms on these pages. Your page has to load custom fonts to improve the experience.
- Remember to declare the height and width of an image to avoid poorly-optimized images. For videos, remember to use AMP-approved extensions.
Advantages of AMP
- AMP will help you achieve fast loading.
- AMP also leads to improve click-through-rate by improving browser visibility for content marketers.
- Since mobile-friendly pages are rewarded in mobile search results, AMP optimized pages rank higher than non-AMP pages.
- AMP allows content publishers to get rid of distractions in their pages through flexible ad support.
- The publishers can also use tag manager analytics with ease on AMP pages for user tracking.
Conclusion
- Accelerated Mobile Pages is still in development.
- Given the advantages outlined above, AMP is something that publishers need to consider carefully.
- AMP is one way to deliver faster load times and a strong user experience.