Accelerated Mobile Pages, designed to enable content to load quicker when viewed on mobile devices, is now helping ecommerce sites to improve conversion rates and increase sales.

The technology allows you to build a stripped-back version of your website which will be loaded, instead of your regular site, when viewed on a mobile handset where connection can often be limited to lower speeds.

There are many benefits, but it is not a perfect solution. However, the technology continues to grow in popularity with both developers and users and sites as large as eBay have begun to utilise it.

How can AMP help my site?

The technology was founded on the belief that users prefer sites that load quicker. Statistics show that a user can change their mind and hit the back button after just a few seconds of waiting for a site to load.

AMP’s intention is to provide pages that load almost instantaneously.

By employing AMP on your key pages, they will load quicker and you will get stronger buy-in from a larger number of potential customers. In technical terms, a lower bounce rate.

In addition, Google now lists AMP-enabled pages with a little lightning bolt symbol in its search results. As the technology becomes more familiar to the general public, this logo will draw in customers.

And although Google is yet to give priority rankings to sites using AMP, for some time it has used load speeds in its algorithms, which benefits such sites.

All this results in more visibility for AMP-enabled sites, resulting in more traffic. This traffic is then more likely to browse for longer and make a purchase, as the sites are better suited to their needs.

In short, AMP improves sales.

So what’s the catch?

AMP doesn’t make regular pages load quicker, instead it strips out everything that isn’t considered essential, leaving only the essential parts. When there’s less to load, it’s obviously quicker.

There are some casualties. AMP only offers a limited version of javascript, for example, which can severely restrict how some websites work. Much online advertising uses javascript, so running ads on your AMP-enabled pages may not be possible.

Similarly, Google Analytics is affected. Only a pared-down version can be employed, which is more difficult to set up and offers less detail in return.

How to make the most of AMP

In addition to limited functionality, AMP is time-consuming and difficult to set up.

To combat this, most websites choose to apply it only to a few key pages. These may include the home page, key landing pages, and category pages, but not individual product pages.

However, it is also important that the rest of your website is optimised for mobile viewing and speedy loading, too.

Where there is a sudden hike in loading times, the user will go elsewhere and all benefits will be lost. Also, care must be taken that AMP-enabled pages look very similar to the rest of the site. If not, a user may think they have been taken from one website to another, which may feel suspicious – especially where ecommerce is concerned.

The key is to ensure that the transition from AMP-enabled page to regular page is as smooth as possible.

AMP is not a perfect technology and it has many limitations. But it can also help increase the number of visitors to your site, increase conversion rates and ultimately increase your sales.

To learn more about AMP and how your ecommerce operation can make the most of it, contact Nasir Kothia on 01254 279998.

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