In recent years more and more of us have been accessing the internet from our phones and we reached quite a significant tipping point in the past 18 months. The point where there is now more internet traffic coming from smart phones than there was from our trusted desktop computers.
It’s important to highlight the impact this has on user experience. Whilst we’ve all hopefully made the effort to make our sites mobile friendly, less of us will have thought about the pace at which our site loads. Around 40% of people abandon websites that take longer than 3 seconds to load and with more than 80% of people now accessing the internet through their smartphones throughout the course of the average month, it’s more essential than ever that businesses in Devon and Cornwall have mobile-optimised sites.
The opportunity is even greater when we begin to look at Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), which Google are rolling out in an attempt to make the mobile web even faster and friendlier than ever before.
You may have already noticed AMP pages appearing at the top of your Google search results; they say AMP with a small lightning bolt next to them.
So what are AMP pages?
Accelerated Mobile Pages pretty much do what they say on the tin; they’re webpages which load content almost instantaneously, hence the ‘accelerated’ term. Without getting too technical, AMP pages are unique HTML pages that prioritise speed and a fast experience for users.
They are created in addition to mobile-friendly webpages, and have expanded exposure across the entire Google Mobile Search results page, including e-commerce, entertainment, travel, news, recipe sites and more. Companies already using AMP pages include The Daily Mail, Guardian News & Media, eBay, Disney, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube.
This means, if you’re searching for something relevant to those websites, their AMP pages will appear at the top of the search results, either in the Top Stories area, in shopping results or in a new Live Coverage carousel, which is currently being developed for real-time events such as breaking news, elections and sports.
Although Google says they will not affect search ranking results, businesses with AMP pages will benefit from having their webpages appear first on mobile devices.
So if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, we’d highly recommend updating it before it gets left behind for good!
Give us a call on 01566 232323 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk to talk to us about a new mobile-optimised website.
