In real estate they say location, location, location. On the web, it’s speed, speed, speed. That’s especially true for browsing the internet on a mobile device.
What is Mobile AMP and why is it gaining so much popularity these days? If you have a look at the count of internet users these days, there is a rapid rise with more people using online services like e-shopping, bill payments, and execution of business procedures. And with the pandemic, use of the web for almost purpose has exponentially increased.
However, some websites do not have the user experience in mind. Coupled with bad UI/UX (What You Need to Know About Website UI / UX Affecting Conversion Rates), they are quite heavy and mobile users can wait an eternity (anything over 3 seconds in web time) to view the home page or the most crucial page of all – the product page of an e-commerce site. This is where your (slow) website starts losing traffic and eventually ends up with reduced business.
Mobile AMP was introduced by Google and as a “code-lite” platform to increase results in improving page loading performance for mobile users. It requires using restricted forms of HTML and CSS, and no JAVA. This means that you cannot use certain tags which helps in improving the mobile user experience.
Some of the best news-publishers use AMP sites for mobile delivery of their content. You can see that in the AMP lightning bolt symbol in search results.
You do not need to be a giant business to afford or implement AMP. For less than $500 in set-up costs, you can get your Shopify website to be “AMPed” with ShopSheriff’s app coupled with our custom integration service, and watch your organic SEO traffic, shopping results, sales and conversions grow.
First, let us tell you about the numerous advantages of using Mobile AMP including the following.
1. Load Time Is Reduced
It is important to understand that user experience is critical for generating good business results. An online brand cannot operate successfully if its website has performance problems. Users do not have patience when they browse websites, especially if they are in the mode to make an impulse purchase. They want pages to load quickly (in less than3 seconds) and do not have glitches.
- Since AMP was developed by Google, the Google Algorithm gives preference to AMP pages of a website in both search and shopping ads because Google knows that the visitor will not have a delayed experience. AMP pages are pre-cached in Google once they are indexed so that is one of the reasons AMP sites load so quickly.
- Why do web pages load at a slow pace? One of the key reasons is the programming practices used. The web page structure majorly comprises HTML and CSS. The structure of the page is created using HTML while CSS is used to make it dynamic. In the case of AMP, some tags are not used, and this has a positive impact on the loading speed. As a result, web pages load faster, and users do not have to wait. In a nutshell, the website performance improves by leaps and bounds.
- Is the load time a major factor impacting user count? The answer to this question is yes. These days, users have multiple options for everything. For instance, if someone is browsing an online clothing brand and the website is slow on the mobile, he or she will immediately seek better options and the brand will start losing users.
2. AMP Sites Increase Conversion
The proof is in the pudding as they say. Here is just one of our recent AMP site projects. Within just the first two months, AMP conversions are almost at 20%.
3. The Bounce Rate Does Not Increase
There is a big difference between bounce rate and user traffic. The bounce rate defines the number of users who visited the website but did not spend enough time (less than a second – “they bounced off”. This usually happens when the website has technical issues or takes too much time to load. The use of AMP is a great method to reduce bounce rates and improve online business results.
- Bounce rate affects the site’s overall performance in advertising spend, SEO, and loss of valuable traffic. For even the best brands, survival becomes quite hard if the bounce rate is high. Brands generate revenue when the user count is consistent. If a user returns, he potentially makes an online purchase, and this is when the brand earns. On the other hand, high bounce rates show users exiting the website in quick time which shows that the probability of returning is not high.
- The bounce rate decreases when websites use mobile AMP. Because most internet users prefer smartphones these days, a high bounce rate seriously impacts sales figures. The use of AMP improves loading speed and has a positive impact on overall website performance. This leads to more users as well.
4. SEO Ranks Are Improved
Why do some websites generate high business profits while others struggle to make an impact? A lot depends on the SEO rank a website has. If it is rated on the first page, there would be many clicks and the chances of getting more leads would be high – for FREE. It’s the best kind of traffic – Organic. How do you get better SERP placement? AMP is one way.
However, the flip side is that if the SEO rank is low, the website would be ranked beyond the first page and a lot of users would never even see the site. It’s like having your business in the forest. No visitors, except the occasional crawler.
- The SEO rank of a website depends on the page loading speed amongst many other factors. Slow websites have less traffic coming their way which eventually results in reduced SEO rank. When a website is not listed among the top results, the count of users clicking the link decreases as well. This leads to reduced profits and in the long run, online brands that have low SEO ranks are forced to close. Need SEO help? Talk to our experts.
- The use of mobile AMP is a key factor for getting websites to the top page. User experience is very important, and a slow website fails to provide it. In a nutshell, the use of mobile AMP improves user experience which eventually leads to better SEO ranking.
5. AMP Sites Are Native For Mobile-Friendly Experience
A lot of people have queries about whether the use of mobile AMP generates any compatibility problem or not. It does not create any such issue.
- AMPs work perfectly with all smartphone platforms so users can rest assured about the overall experience getting hampered. In addition to that, no additional software, apps, plugins, or gimmick tools must be installed to improve the experience.
Summing it Up
There is absolutely no doubt that Mobile AMP is a must have for a website’s performance on mobile devices. For website owners, this is a blessing since they do not have to worry about losing traffic. This does happen when the website has a slow loading speed. It is important to understand that most users are not patient enough to wait. More importantly, if they end up with slow loading pages, they prefer not to visit the website again.
Mobile AMP will improve overall website performance, increase SEO ranking, reduce bounce rate, and increase conversion. We have the facts and figures to show how our clients have gone from 2% conversion to over 20% using AMP.
Get in touch with us so we can help you build a fully customized Mobile AMP theme to match your desktop and mobile site.
