Why Your Website Needs Accelerated Mobile Pages in 2022
How often do you try to load a website on your smartphone and abandon the effort because it takes a frustratingly long time to load? Or worst, you’re trying to read the article on a small screen and you can’t because the ads take up all the space. Don’t do this to your customers.
Mobile traffic has been steadily increasing for years and now accounts for more than half of all web traffic worldwide. This trend is only going to continue, which is why it’s so important to make sure your website is optimized for mobile devices.
One way to do this is by using Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). AMP reduces your load time to almost immediate which will have a positive result on your bounce rate. It almost doesn’t make sense to optimize your website for search engines without implementing AMP. Keep reading to learn why.
What Are Accelerated Mobile Pages?
AMP is a Google-backed initiative that aims to improve the performance of web pages on mobile devices. AMP pages are stripped-down versions of regular web pages, with less code and fewer images. This makes them load much faster on mobile devices, which is essential for delivering a good user experience.
How crucial? One study reported that your bounce rate (people leaving your website to go back to the search results) can be as high as 90% if your site takes longer than just 5 seconds to load. AMP’s speed is therefore crucial for your most important pages.
AMPs were at first designed for news articles, but they can be used for any type of content. Implementing AMP on your website is a simple process and there are a number of plugins available to help you do it.
How AMPs Work
When someone searches for something on Google, the search engine will return a mix of regular web pages and AMP pages in the results. If the user clicks on an AMP page, it will load instantly without any waiting. This is because AMP pages are cached by Google, so they don’t have to be loaded from scratch each time they’re accessed.
This may not seem like a big deal, but it makes a huge difference in the user experience. No one likes to wait for a web page to load, especially on a mobile device with a small screen.
AMP pages are also designed to be as simple as possible. They can only include certain elements, such as text, images, and videos. This helps to keep the page size small, which further improves loading times.
The Benefits of AMPs
We touched on a few advantages of AMPs earlier but let’s dive into why you need AMPs for your website. Here are four reasons:
Improve User Experience
The most important reason to implement AMP is to improve the user experience on your website. Mobile users are often impatient and if your website takes too long to load, they’re likely to abandon it and go somewhere else.
AMP pages are almost four times faster than traditional mobile-optimized pages. They also use 10 times fewer data, which is important for users who are often on limited data plans.
Better Search Engine Rankings
AMPs and SEO are a perfect match. Google has stated that they prefer websites that are mobile-friendly and perform well on mobile devices. This means that if your website is slow and not optimized for mobile, it’s going to be at a disadvantage in the search engine rankings.
On the other hand, if your website is fast and accessible on all devices, you’re more likely to rank higher in the search results. This leads to more traffic and ultimately more customers for your business.
Increased Engagement
Another benefit of AMPs is that they can help increase engagement with your content. If users have a positive experience on your website, they’re more likely to stick around and read more articles. They may even subscribe to your newsletter or follow you on social media.
This increased engagement can lead to more conversions and sales for your business.
Improved Ad Performance
Ads are an important source of revenue for many websites but they can also be a major source of frustration for users. On AMP pages, ads are heavily restricted and must follow certain guidelines.
This may sound like a bad thing but it actually results in better ad performance. Ads that are well-designed and not too intrusive are more likely to be clicked on, which means more revenue for you.
Adding AMPs to Websites
Now that we’ve gone over some of the benefits of AMPs, let’s take a look at how you can add them to your website. There are three methods you can use:
1. Use a Plugin – This will require some technical know-how but using a plug-in to add AMP to your website can help to speed up the process.
2. Manually Add AMP Pages – If you don’t want to use a plugin, you can also add AMP pages to your website manually. This requires adding some code to your website but it’s not too difficult if you’re comfortable with basic HTML and CSS.
3. Use a Third-Party Service – Another option is to use a third-party service or experienced website developers to create AMP pages for your website. This is a good option if you don’t want to deal with the technical aspects of setting up AMPs yourself.
Whichever method you choose, make sure to test your AMP pages thoroughly before making them live. This will ensure that there are no errors and that users have a positive experience with your website.
Increase Your Website’s Traffic with AMPs
As you can see, there are a number of benefits to using Accelerated Mobile Pages on your website. If you’re not already using them, we recommend implementing them as soon as possible.
Not sure where to get started? Our team of web development experts can help you create a mobile-friendly website that loads quickly and ranks high in search results. Request a readiness assessment and let us take a comprehensive look at your online presence. We’ll recommend the best next steps for your business.
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