The web has expanded dramatically in recent years, which has brought many challenges. Among these, the issues that have bothered users the most are the unreliability and slow nature of the mobile web. Many new technologies, led by Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and Progressive Web Apps (PWA), have been introduced to address these issues.
These technologies guarantee that they will provide a richer, faster, and more engaging experience that engages and inspires users. They have come at the right time when the use of mobile devices is growing unprecedentedly.
With more than half of the web traffic coming from mobile devices, developers have shifted their focus and introduced tools like Accelerated Mobile Pages and Progressive Web pages to deliver a great mobile experience.
We will discuss various aspects of MPAs and PWAs and determine which technology is best for mobile use. will also present the advantages and disadvantages of the two tools, how they work and why they were needed in the first place.
The need for AMP and PWA
In today’s fast-paced world, users are looking for a faster and more reliable experience. However, until very late, most websites took too long to load, which annoyed mobile users.
As a result, most users would leave the web page halfway without even seeing what the site has to offer. Statistics show that 53% of visitors leave a site if it takes more than 3 minutes to load.
Mobile apps have seemed to be the right choice to ensure user engagement, as they involve users 20 times more minutes than websites. But again, the first 1,000 mobile apps reach 4 times fewer people than the first 1,000 mobile websites.
In addition, a disproportionate 77% of users leave a mobile app in just 72 hours after downloading it. With such bleak statistics, brands are looking for ways to redirect and engage their users.
Progressive Web Apps and Accelerated Mobile Pages have emerged as solutions to overcome slow page load speeds and poor user engagement. The emergence of these technologies has come as a lifeline for brands that have failed to provide a satisfying experience for site users and their applications.
What is Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)?
Accelerated Mobile Pages or soon AMP is an open-source project from Google that allows developers to create web pages that load faster on mobile devices. It is created on JavaScript and offers an almost instant and perfect experience than ordinary HTML.
Google integrated AMPs into mobile search in 2016, and pages that use AMPs could appear on the SERP as “AMPs.”
AMP removes all irrelevant scripts and JavaScript to save bandwidth; therefore, we only get a simple page that contains only the essential information, without the luxurious features that otherwise come in HTML pages.
Removing irrelevant scripts can affect the user experience and involvement on a website, but ensures that the information is delivered to mobile users as soon as possible.
Some features of AMP include:
Improve speed: Reduce page load time and speed up your website
Mobile-based approach: Improves mobile SEO and keyword rankings on mobile devices
Full control of editors over website images: Website editors have full control over visual and business design
Create an AMP page
AMP improves the loading speed of the webpage by cutting off unnecessary JavaScript. It statically measures page elements and uses asynchronous loading to reduce loading time.
The good news is that you don’t have to rebuild or work on the entire site to improve the performance of certain pages on the site. Instead, you can target specific pages that you intend to improve by focusing on developing AMP for web design. To create an AMP page, you need to go through the following steps
Create an HTML AMP page. If you have no idea how to do it, ampproject.org is here to help.
Include an image.
Change the look and feel: AMP pages are web pages. Stylizing a page and its elements is done using common CSS properties.
Preview the AMP page similar to how you preview any static HTML site.
Validate: To ensure that your AMP page is discovered by third-party platforms such as Google, you must validate it. To do this, go to your browser and add “# development = 1” to the URL. Open the Chrome DevTools console and look for validation errors.
Prepare your page for discovery and distribution.
The advantages
- Page load up to 4 times faster
- They improve SEO and keyword ranking in mobile searches
- They accept all ad formats and all advertising facilities
- Extremely useful for content-based websites, such as news publishers
Pages with a valid AMP version have a huge opportunity to surpass those who have not yet adopted this feature. The pages of the AMP version are more likely to display their content on the first page.
Because AMP is designed to load faster, showing only useful content, there are often some visual limitations that come with it. These include:
Less user involvement compared to HTML pages
Image upload functionality
I can’t track user activity on AMP pages
They cannot improve search engine rankings
Not suitable for e-commerce sites as it does not include all the luxuries needed to stimulate user engagement
What are Progressive Web Apps (PWA)?
PWA is an acronym for Progressive Web Apps. These are web pages that look like native mobile apps and offer similar navigation and interaction. It also helps users get your site back to you with push notifications, fast uploads, and offline web pages.
PWA characteristics
For an application to be considered a progressive web application, it must include the following features:
Progressive: it should work for every user, regardless of browser choice ”
Uploading content: It must be responsive on any desktop, mobile, tablet, or any other web-capable electronic device. ”
Connectivity: should be improved with service workers to work offline or in crashing networks.
Discoverable: should be identifiable as “applications” due to W3C manifestos and the scope of registration of service workers.
Installable: Must be installable on the home screen without users getting into the trouble of the app store.
Advantages of PWAs
- Fast page loading, regardless of network quality
- No installation or updating of the application is required
- It can be easily accessed via the home screen icon
- Allows smooth navigation and animations
- Can be used offline
- Maximized coverage and a higher engagement rate thanks to features like push notifications
- Relatively cheaper than native applications
- Unified customer experience
Against PWAs
Despite its obvious benefits, Progressive Web Apps has limited capabilities when it comes to hardware features and device integration.
It does not support all native features
Not all devices support full software functionality
Call functions without the Dialer dialog
Changelogs or system settings
Access to contacts, room, calendar, alarm, browser, etc.
Access to sensors and hardware features
Not all hardware features are supported
Not all browsers are supported
Which is Better, AMP or PWA?
There is no clear winner between AMP and PWA, as both work best in combination. While one provides you with instant content, the other ensures that users interact and interact with the website.
The choice between the two also depends on the type of website you are running. AMP sounds good for non-heavy media sites that contain mostly static content, such as news posts. But running an e-commerce site will allow visitors to have an easy-to-use experience, even without installing your mobile app. In such a case, PWA will be a wise choice.