Want to know how accelerated mobile pages could help improve your website performance? Matt Hitches, UX designer-developer, provides a breakdown on what AMPs are all about, how they can improve click-through rate, and the benefits of AMP analytics to WordPress site owners.
Accelerated mobile pages were launched in October 2015 with the aim of providing developers with an easier way to build web pages for static content that render fast on mobile, providing increased load time and better user engagement.
Mobile now represents more than 65% of time consumers spend on digital devices, according to ComScore, with this figure set to increase in 2017 and beyond. Users are increasingly consuming more news and data on their mobile devices than ever before.
What Are Accelerated Mobile Pages?
An open source initiative backed by Google, the AMP project is built around a stripped down HTML that enables web pages to load quicker and be more reliable in the mobile arena.
Built to load almost instantaneously, AMP allows only asynchronous scripts, which helps avoid the delays caused by author-written JavaScript. AMP built websites also size all resources statically, meaning they load page layouts without having to wait for large resources to download and then resize.
There is a whole host of required HTML mark-up, which is easy enough to factor into your WordPress page, but in essence the aim is to produce a pared down site that is streamlined and built for load speed, not for aesthetics.
However, one thing that accelerated mobile pages are not is a replacement for responsive web design. Thankfully, AMP and RWD both use the same basic website building blocks, so you can bring them together for your site build.
Benefits of Setting Up AMP
There are many reasons for using AMP; top of these is a faster load time for mobile visitors. AMP pages load 4x faster than standard web pages and use 10x less data than non-AMP pages.
While AMP is not yet an independent ranking factor for SEO, having a mobile friendly page certainly is, and so too is page load speed. These two combined mean that running an AMP website can improve your search engine rankings, increasing visibility.
Then there is the usability factor. A fast and responsive website is simply easier to use and engage with, which should help increase conversion rates too.
Still not convinced? It has been reported that 90% of AMP sites experience higher click-through rates.
Is My Site Right for AMP?
We get lots of questions on who should be adopting accelerated mobile pages. What companies are AMPs best suited to? Do you need to be a big company or can SMEs also benefit from this new technology? Does this need to be site wide, or just for specific pages?
When launched in 2015, AMPs were primarily focused on delivering news stories from online publishers. Load time was critical for such pages.
Since then, a whole host of other business types have taken on AMP, from large e-commerce retailers to smaller companies focused on lead generation.
Top Tips for Setting Up AMP On Your WordPress Site
Smartphone ownership is set to surpass desktop ownership for the first time in 2017, making a mobile optimised web presence a vital business tool for anyone hoping to succeed in the digital arena. However, making the change to AMP is not without its own challenges.
Here are our top tips to ensure a smooth transition.
- Use available WordPress plugins to dynamically generate AMP-compatible versions of your web pages. However, while this plugin will create AMP content, it will not automatically show it to your mobile visitors. You will need to set this up for Google Search.
- Use AMP Analytics to measure activity on your AMP documents. AMP Analytics also support other analytics providers, such as Google Analytics, comScore, Parsely and more.
- Consider how your AMP page will show on mobile SERPs. Using the Yoast SEO: AMP Glue plugin can help you make sure your meta data is correctly implemented.
Need expert support? The web development team here at ClickThrough Marketing can help you install and configure AMP to your website, while also assisting with the set-up of AMP Analytics.
What’s more, while design is limited in AMP to reduce load time, our website designers can still create a theme that is in keeping with your brand guidelines, providing a seamless journey across your site – from desktop to mobile.
Want to create accelerated mobile pages for your site but not sure where to start? Contact us today to learn more about our AMP web development services.
