While our appreciation for mobile responsive web design is without bounds (thank you, mobile web, for revolutionising the way we gather information), we have to admit that the experience is not entirely user-friendly. Accessing websites on our phones can be painfully slow, and waiting for them to load can be really frustrating.
The good news is, this problem is being addressed via an open source initiative called Accelerated Mobile Pages, which, according to Google Blog, “aims to dramatically improve the performance of the mobile web. We want webpages with rich content like video, animations and graphics to work alongside smart ads, and to load instantaneously.”
The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project makes use of AMP HTML, which enables websites to create light-weight, easy-to-load, and user-friendly webpages. The code is open to all, and is designed to function across multiple platforms and mobile devices. It’s definitely a nifty way to access and digest mobile content right away.
Check out the demo posted by Google here:
Integrating AMP pages for your responsive web design requires sheer carefulness. Will Critchlow from Moz calls AMP a “stripped-down form of HTML, hence you need to ensure your pages are valid, and the tags are in proper order and locations.
When you validate your AMP pages, you will need this built-in Chrome tool that allows you to see if your pages are valid and if there are any problems. Then once your AMP pages are built properly, you should figure out how to streamline building these pages. Make sure all of your website pages have AMP versions and that your CMS should be equipped with such functionality.
It sounds like a lot of work, but the benefits of AMP are tremendous. Not only does it guarantee faster loading of mobile pages, it also helps improve your page ranking and makes you more visible in search engines.
Allow us to build AMP for your website. Hit us up!
