Not only are people increasingly using their smartphones for shopping, but they are also spending more time using them. Just from 2016 to 2017, the time spent per day on mobile is said to have increased by seven minutes, reaching a total of 3 hours and 15 minutes per day. This increase in time usage represents a greater chance for retailers to sell more products online.
Search engines like Google recognize the importance of mobile use. Thus, Google has made a point of rewarding websites optimized for mobile. Since the release of its mobile algorithm, Google has encouraged websites to be optimized for mobile in order to provide a better user experience for everyone.
The company's latest initiative, AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages, is another step towards an improved mobile experience. Here, we'll take a look at what AMP is, how it helps ecommerce businesses, and why you should make the switch today!
What is AMP?
AMP, as mentioned, stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, and it is a relatively new open source project created by Google to speed up the loading speed of mobile sites. AMP Pages are made up of three components: AMP HTML, AMP JS, and AMP Cache. These components offer much faster performance than regular mobile sites, which improves the overall experience.
In fact, Google claims they're so fast they seem to load instantly. It's like having the same look of your site but with a much "lighter" code that allows for faster loading times. The AMP project site offers many guides and resources available for less experienced users. However, if you want to skip the learning curve, there are plenty of plugins available for the major CMS platforms that make dealing with the process easier.
How AMP can positively impact your e-commerce
AMP Pages were quickly adopted by news sites and e-commerce giants like eBay. The company has deployed millions of AMP pages to speed up mobile load times. Content-related sites also see the benefit of using AMP. As you can see below, Google presents them in a carousel format (note the AMP line below each post in the carousel).
Thus, Google gives these sites more visibility and, in turn, higher traffic. While eCommerce sites have not yet benefited from this carousel feature, AMP Pages can provide many benefits to this industry. Let's review them below:
- More visibility : Google gives preference to sites that load faster by increasing their organic rankings. Having AMP Pages will give you the competitive advantage of ranking above your competition while providing a better user experience to your visitors.
- Reduce the bounce rate : Did you know that almost half of your visitors will abandon a page that takes more than three seconds to load? This means that if your pages take too long to load, you may experience a higher than normal bounce rate.
- According to definition from Google, bounce rate is “a single page session on your site… when a user opens a single page on your site and then closes without any further requests being sent to the Google Analytics server during that session. you reduce bounce rates by speeding up your load times. In turn, lower bounce rates also contribute to higher organic rankings.
- Higher return rate. One of AMP's case studies, published in The Washington Post, indicates that the news site saw a 23% increase in the number of users returning from mobile search. Additionally, they experienced an 88% improvement in load times. What made them come back?
Since nothing else has changed, it can be said that the faster mobile load times have improved the user experience which has kept visitors coming back to the site. Likewise, the enhanced experience enabled by AMP can keep your visitors coming back to your site for repeat purchases, thus increasing your earning potential.
- Higher conversions : Faster load times will provide your customers with the ideal experience to encourage conversions E-commerce. It will also allow them to find the products they are looking for more quickly and prevent counter-assumptions. The more products they see, the more likely you are to get bigger orders.
Disadvantages of using AMP
As with anything else, AMP also has its drawbacks. Let's review below:
- Google Analytics Problems AMP requires a different Google Analytics tag which must be implemented on each page. It can be time consuming and tedious. Also, you may not be able to see all of the usual charts and tables offered by Google Analytics.
- Advertising revenue is reduced. This point doesn't really affect ecommerce businesses unless your store is connected to a blog where you advertise other sites. AMP supports ads, but implementation is not easy and others have seen their income decrease using AMP.
- Limited functionality. To increase load speeds, you might miss out on some higher-level features that can be implemented with regular responsive designs.
Final notes
AMP offers advantages and disadvantages; However, the pros seem to outweigh the cons when it comes to e-commerce. It can offer your store increased visibility possibly boosting organic traffic, reducing bounce rate with high loading speeds and increasing conversions.
If you have the time to learn how to implement AMP, we have wrote a tutorial on. Implementing as early as possible can also give you a competitive advantage over other stores that aren't mobile-friendly or just have a responsive design. Who knows ? Maybe AMP will become a staple in the years to come.
