Optimizing mobile websites
The publishers are moving away from Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). Since the launch of AMP in 2016 Google has moved on. AMP’s usefulness is being questioned. Other technologies can provide more flexibility in customization and monetization.
AMP offers an easy way to produce fast-loading and user-friendly mobile pages along with other benefits. It has its limitations too. Publishers moving away from AMP will have to ensure that they retain its advantages and at the same time move away from its limitations.
Large businesses can build their own custom AMP alternatives but everybody cannot do so.
To ensure that their pages perform well the publishers can focus on the following:
- To make sure your pages rank well you should comply with the Core Web Vitals metrics. You should set-up real-user monitoring and check the Core Web Vitals scores in real-time. Investigate any issues and provide quick actions.
The first thing to ensure is that your pages load quickly and for this you can use full-site caching and Content Delivery Network (CDN). This gives you the advantages of Google caching AMP pages. It also offers several advantages like giving you more control, increased security and reliability.
Along with this you can remove extra JavaScript code, optimize images and use Lazy loading.
Image optimisation
You should ensure that the images are optimised for all image sizes on all resolutions required.
You should try to strike a balance between the image size, image quality and loading them.
The different formats that can be used for images are PNG, GIF and JPEG. The JPEG images can be compressed without losing out on quality. It is the standard image type for the web. The GIF images are of lower quality and are usually used for icons and decorative images. The PNG format is more popular than GIF and it does not degrade over time as JPEG does but they have larger file sizes.
Minifying and concatenating files
Compression and minification are used to reduce the file sizes of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Compression involves using formats like GZIP to reduce the file size by 90%. Minification involves removing the whitespaces, comments and unused code from the files, This helps to reduce the file size by 50%.
You can concatenate several files into one to reduce the number of HTTP requests. Lazy loading helps to delay the loading of images and videos until the page is loaded. This reduces the amount of data to be loaded initially and helps to improve the page speed.
- You need to offer more than just quick loading time to keep your user engaged and maintain the top place in the search results. You should add features into the page design that boost engagement and interactivity.
- One of the main components of publishing operations is advertising. The platform should support a large number of demand partners. AMP offers limited options and it becomes difficult to implement header bidding. AMP supports only specified ad formats.
- One of the reasons why the publishers continue to use AMP is its simplicity. Any website can set up the AMP page without much technical expertise. And it does not require any costly development either. Your custom solution should be easy to set up.
This way the publishers can make sure that their mobile sites continue to perform well and offer a positive user experience without using AMP.
Mobile website optimisation techniques
Responsive web designs use a fluid grid and a flexible design to automatically fit to the size of a user’s screen. This design uses media queries to define the display resolution that it will support. Each separate resolution is called a ‘Breakpoint’ where the resolution changes from one to the next.
Mobile-first design
Mobile-first design involves building your website for mobile before building the desktop version. You start creating your website with mobile in mind. This allows you to optimise for mobile as much as possible.
First, you design your product for the mobile and the product is a lean design that provides a good user experience. The product and the design are then enhanced for the desktop.
You will have to prioritise your content when using this design so that the most important information and actions are visible. You can approach website optimisation services to optimise your website for mobile.
Mobile-friendly navigation
One of the important points to look out for when optimising your website for mobile is the navigation. On a small screen, it can be difficult for people to find what they are looking for. Therefore you should use simple site menus and try to keep everything visible without having to zoom in. The mobile interfaces used should be large so that they are easy for the users to tap.
Speed optimisation
Page speed is another important factor for mobile optimisation. You should try to improve your page speed by optimising your images, minifying your code, using browser caching, reducing the number of redirects and more.
Testing and performance measurement
You can use mobile emulators to test your mobile website. Mobile emulators are software that imitates the working of your system built for mobile. It also considers the hardware part.
Device labs are a place where the actual device is used for testing. You can rent them to do your testing.
SEO considerations for mobile optimisation
Mobile-friendly websites rank higher in the search results. You can use a second parallel website for mobile users. You can use the ‘m’ subdomain for this. This will allow you to create custom content for mobile users.
You can use structured data which translates into rich snippets in the mobile search results. This can help to improve the visibility of your website.
Conclusion
Optimising your website for mobile ensures that your website works well across a variety of devices. It should be taken into consideration from the beginning while building your website.
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