The prevalence of mobile phone usage is causing the web to split in two. Ordinary websites just don’t load fast enough on mobile phone networks, so website-owners are creating a lighter version of their website for mobile phones, lest they continue losing visitors.
This realisation has been coming to the fore recently since Google released the statistic that:
53% of mobile users abandon a page that doesn’t load within 3 seconds
For a business website, that means uncountable potential customers were lost because the images, pages and styling on the website were taking too long. But thankfully, Google came up with a solution.
The New Mobile Web: Google AMP
AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. They are a fast website that loads on mobile devices instead of your normal website. Why is this such a big deal?
AMP sites load 387% faster than sites without APT
— CNBC
This is a monumental, game-changing statistic. In fact, it is splitting the web in two: a desktop and a mobile version.
Now there is an AMP version of The New York Times, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter and numerous other large websites. These sites realised the vast benefits and potentials of the new mobile web, so they were among the first to enter it by getting an AMP site.
Previous thinking was to code the desktop site so that it scaled down and displayed nicely on mobile devices. This has its merits, but was always a bit bulky and more of a band-aid than an ideal solution.
How Do AMP Sites Achieve Such Incredible Performance?
AMP sites are far more than just bare bones versions of a normal website, they have three key optimisations.
Firstly, they actually follow strict guidelines that ensure that their code can be read as fast as possible by the web browser. They use compressed, inline code.
Secondly, they include a code by Google that implements basically every optimisation trick in the book automatically. One of these is the trick that makes the entire webpage appear in a flash, rather than load piece-by-piece.
Thirdly, Google stores a copy of them in their own database. Therefore, Google has already loaded most of the content before the viewer even opens the page.
All this accounts for the ‘flash’ effect when someone opens an AMP page, and it loads almost instantly.
Isn’t It Bad For My Google Rankings (SEO) To Split My Website In Two?
You would think this is a terrible idea, but actually AMP sites have significant SEO benefits. (SEO is ‘Search Engine Optimisation’; it’s what makes you come up on the first page rather than the last page of the Google Search Results.)
Your AMP page is linked to your existing website through what is called a canonical tag. Therefore, Google treats them as the same site but not duplicate content, so you can rest assured that your SEO won’t get split in two.
You will actually get some strong SEO benefits from an Accelerated Mobile Page. Google rewards sites that load fast. You also lose less visitors, thus lifting your rank even higher. Using AMP aligns perfectly with Google’s strategies, so you can expect to see even more benefits in the future.
Is It Complicated And Expensive For Me To Get An Entire Second Site Just For Mobile?
Once again, you would think so, but it actually isn’t. You can get a Jetpak page for your site for an incredibly affordable price. This is an Accelerated Mobile Page designed with the Google specifications that is a bolt on feature to your current website. It has all the information Google and your visitor needs, streamlined into the most effective and lightning-fast format possible. You should consider a Jetpak AMP page for your business website.