(AMP)lify Your Website with PWA
In today’s time, everyone is in a rush to go somewhere. I can personally attest to this, most days I am running back and forth from school to work with little time in between. This is why accelerated mobile pages (AMP) and progressive web applications (PWA) is important for all internet users, both have benefits to searching the web.
Accelerated mobile pages is exactly how it sounds, it is an open source program made by Google to make a better and faster mobile internet experience. Google made this program as competitive counter move to Facebook’s instant articles, but it was also a smart move, because the rate of mobile usage is increasing while desktop is decreasing. The Digital Marketing Institute explained that 51.3% of web traffic is coming from mobile devices, and with the growing rate and advancement of smartphones and tablets, this will only increase in the years to come. Not only that, but with mobile searches 53% of users will abandon a page is if they have to wait more than three seconds for it to load. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.. if your visitor has to wait that long for your webpage to load, they are already gone. This is why AMP works so well, it accelerates the loading time for web pages to microseconds.
There are some pros and cons to using AMP, Forbes explains the advantages and disadvantages..
Pros
- Speed. With AMP, web pages load twice as fast than without AMP
- Visibility. AMP gives web pages a boost in visibility with organic search results, thus an increasement in web traffic
- Dwell time. Dwell time is how long a site visitor is on the web page, but analytics have shown that sites who have AMP tend to have a higher dwell time. A higher dwell time is good because visitors are interacting and engaging with the site, leading to higher conversion rates
- Engagement. Going along with dwell time, engagement increases with AMP. AMP increases site functionality, and as a result, higher conversion rates
- Competition. AMP gives a competitive advantage, it should differentiation among your key competitors
Cons
- Hard to implement. Executing AMP is easier said than done. Google’s developers provide instructions, but without an expertise in web develop, these steps could be difficult to implement.
- Analytics. The analytics provided by Google for AMP are limiting, Google does not allow many opportunities for improvement for the user experience
AMP has its drawbacks, but overall AMP is an asset for your website. It will increase your website loading speed, increase the visibility, and overall increase the engagement among visitors.
On the other hand, similar but very different to accelerated mobile pages (AMP) is progressive web app (PWA). The Medium explains PWA as a “ web page has taken all the ‘right vitamins’ so that it can behave more like an app downloaded from the App Store/ Play Store. It starts as a normal web page in a browser, and as a user explores the webpage, they get the prompt if they would like to “Add to Home Screen”.” Essentially, PWA is a way to make your webpages more reliable, fast, and more engaging. PWA allows the website to load faster and works offline. Once the home screen is loaded, visitors can receive push notifications from the application in hopes to create more website engagement and a higher return rate.
So why should you implement progressive web app?
Nowadays, smartphone users are not downloading as many applications as they used to. Each month, it is said that 50% of Americans with a smart phone are not downloading any applications, and with that every step it takes to download an app, it reduces the chances of actually downloading that app by 20%. PWA helps with this. PWA helps with the audience reach, customer acquisition, and conversion rate. As for the audience reach, when you can provide a better website experience, it will apply to a larger audience, and attract more visitors. Acquisition, Deepu Nath explains that the acquisition will be less expensive as for the cost of web, than the application, it will be approximately 10x cheaper. Lastly, conversion rate will increase by appealing to a larger audience and lower customer acquisition costs.
If you have a website for your organization, you need to be considering the ways to either implement accelerated mobile pages (AMP) and/or progressive web application.