Brief:
- E-commerce platform BigCommerce added support for accelerated mobile pages (AMP), which means its clientele of more than 55,000 online merchants can deliver near-instant page load times for mobile shoppers, according to a press release. AMP, a stripped-down HTML framework started by Google, lets businesses generate streamlined versions of web pages for mobile devices.
- BigCommerce conducted a pilot program last year that found that merchants with AMP-powered category pages, which group together pages based in a similar subject or theme, saw up to 20% higher click-through rates. This jump was likely linked to faster page load times, as a 100-millisecond delay in load time drops conversion by 7%, an Akamai study found.
- BigCommerce's support designates websites as AMP-enabled in Google search results, which improves the likelihood of users clicking on it, knowing they'll have a smoother experience. Consumers are more likely to click on an AMP-enabled link than one that's not, digital marketing firm Stone Temple Consulting found.
Insight:
The news points to how AMP, which originally was positioned for publishers, continues to see its influence grow, in this case gaining a significant toehold in the retail sector through BigCommerce.
As smartphones evolve and consumers grow more comfortable with on-the-go transactions, mobile shopping is growing increasingly commonplace. Retail marketers that want to stay afloat amid a flurry store closures need to adapt and embrace fresh ways to connect with shoppers. However, developing apps or mobile-optimized features can be costly and time consuming, especially for smaller companies looking to compete against e-commerce giants like Amazon. BigCommerce's push to add support for AMP now lets thousands of merchants create a streamlined version of their site for mobile shoppers will give its retail clients a way to remove some of the hurdles with mobile so shoppers can quickly access product information and checkout systems.
While next-generation 5G technology promises to boost website download times for millions of mobile customers in the next few years, marketers need to consider other ways to improve website speed in the meantime. AMP adoption is especially important given Google's 95% market share in mobile search and its recent expansion of mobile-first indexing.
The search giant's mobile-first indexing of websites means the company is prioritizing the mobile version of sites when crawling and ranking search results. The move is part of Google's effort to improve mobile search for users, and is a significant shift from its past practice of using computer programs to crawl, index and rank websites by first looking at the desktop version. The search giant also started a project to convince web standards groups to adopt technology derived from its AMP framework in another push to prioritize mobile content and platforms. Google's proposal, as outlined in a blog post, would let mobile users see faster non-AMP sites throughout the web.
