Everything You Need to Know About AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

The last two decades have witnessed an unbelievable breakthrough in certain technological advancements, with newer innovations introduced almost every year. Thousands of websites are being developed on a daily basis, with search engines rapidly trying to better your browsing experience. Also, with increased stress and growing impatience in users, it’s difficult to keep their attention span for long.

Since a lot of people engage in web surfing through their smartphones instead of computers, search engines are trying to improve user experience. One of the important factors that constitute web browsing is the loading speed. Google recognized the importance of mobile page surfing, and introduced AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages a few years ago, which is now a trending and valuable aspect for content marketers.

What are accelerated mobile pages?

Initiated by Google, Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP is an open-source project that aims to cut down loading time, speed up browsing web pages and optimize surfing experience. Basically, a mobile-friendly web page is further speeded up to load by eliminating heavy graphics and advertisements and simplifying the layout. AMP is developed in such a manner that animations and GIFs are promptly loaded within a fraction of a second.

Take your smartphone out and search for any topic on Google. You’ll see a thunderbolt icon in front of a few web pages. These are the Accelerated Mobile Pages, which are also shown by the acronym AMP. You’ll note that these take less than half the time to load compared to the normal websites.

How are they different?

Often compared to Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News, Google’s AMP differs widely. First, it doesn’t have any dedicated client—except the browser, of course. Also, it isn’t an entire solution in itself. It can be used for several other issues and combined with other solutions as a formula rather than being a publisher on its own.

How are AMP developed and how do they work?

AMP uses a different HTML code known as AMP HTML that is optimized by JavaScript and customized by CSS3, with the pages being cached. So, basically, the three components that form the AMP are AMP HTML, AMP JS, and AMP Cache.

Introducing specific JavaScript tools in the development of your web pages will result in the removal of unwanted HTML elements that make the website heavy, hence increasing the loading speed. This can be done using various AMP plug-ins and themes from AMPWPTools which can help render your web pages into eliminating the HTML elements. This can be extremely useful to gather traffic on your web page because users would prefer faster browsing. Apart from the development of a mobile-friendly web page, content marketers and website developers are increasingly using AMP tools for more clicks and sales through their web pages.

A few points to remember while developing AMP are: 

• You’ll have to use the AMP JavaScript subset instead of the basic one since AMP versions cannot load them.
• Use basic fonts on your AMP to increase the loading speed of the web page because custom or heavy fonts can take time to load.
• You need to strip the layout and format of your AMP to the most basic version to avoid delay in specific loading.
• The images and videos need to be specifically sized and mentioned, with certain extensions on the AMP to be loaded correctly and quickly.

What are the benefits of AMP?

It is noted that a lot of users would stop browsing a page if it takes more than three to four seconds to load. The most basic advantage of AMP is the increased number of clicks and traffic that are generated, which is the main goal of every developer and marketer.

• If you own a shopping website, AMP can be your new tool toward success. Since users lack patience, they might close the web page in less than three seconds if it doesn’t load. This can lead to a great loss of sales every year.
• With AMP, your web page would be ranked higher than normal pages, making its way to the top.
• With less clutter on AMP, you can push in ads that aren’t too distracting to actually grab the attention of users.

With their efficiency and the positive feedback they receive from users, it looks like Accelerated Mobile Pages are here to stay. We’re still not sure if AMP will be adopted as the standard version of mobile web pages, but they surely show a lot of potential. So, do your research before you decide if adopting AMP is the right choice for your website, and don’t forget to use the right tools to facilitate the transition.