Did you know that the recent stats suggest that there are over 4.6 billion users who actively spend time surfing the web/internet every day? And more than half of this whopping number of internet users are mobile users. It means that to attract more traffic and succeed as an online business one must be willing to suffice these mobile users as much as the desktop users.
With the number of mobile users increasing every minute, it only makes sense to invest in improving their user experience. There’s obviously an option to develop a native application for your business but, not every business has the need or budget to develop one. It shall, however, not stop you from providing better services and user experience to your mobile audience.
The two most effective solutions to your problem in such a scenario are Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMPs and progressive Web Apps or the PWAs. To help you better understand the two mobile-friendly technologies, we stand at your resort. Today, we shall talk about the key differences between the accelerated mobile pages and progressive web apps besides understanding what they are. We shall also look at the unique set of benefits they offer and which of the two is better. So, without much ado, let’s get to it.
What is Accelerated Mobile Pages?
Abbreviated as AMP, the Accelerated Mobile Pages the mobile-friendly web pages that are designed to load faster and smoothly. Launched by Google in 2015, the AMP was developed keeping the objective improve the user experience in mind. It is an open-source project that allows developers to use unique coding language and create web pages for mobile that load lots quicker than the traditional web pages. This unique coding language is the lower version of HTML and CSS without any sort of JavaScript.
In the common-man language, you can think of AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages as the fast loading yet lower version of the original web pages. Presently, the Accelerated Mobile Pages are no more limited to building web pages. You can efficiently create AMP ads, AMP emails, and AMP stories too. Let’s now explore the benefits these AMPs offer to enhance the mobile user experience.
Benefits of AMP
Following are the benefits of using accelerated mobile pages to build fast-loading web pages for mobile:
- Instantly loading pages (less than a second)
- Easily cached pages
- Supports all formats of ads
- Enhanced engagement
- 4 times faster website
- Full control over the business and visual design
What are Progressive Web Apps?
When it comes to the most convenient way to surf websites and online services, native mobile applications are definitely the most convenient platform. But that is not so much of a convenience to many online business owners. Such business owners can resort to a software product that combines the advantages of both web versions and mobile apps.
Did you ever notice that certain websites allow you to add their web version on your home screen and use the same mobile app instead of downloading the separate dedicated application? Once added to your home screen, you can now open the website as a progressive web app.
Twitter could be an example.
The Progressive Web Apps designed to enhance the website user-experience of mobile users. They look, feel, and work exactly like the native apps. The only difference between PWA and native mobile apps is that the former is not exactly an application but an offline version that is just as reliable, fast, engaging, and efficient.
Benefits of PWA
- Improved conversion rates
- Faster page loading
- Mobile-app-like experience without downloading the application
- Use lesser device internal storage
- Full-screen presentation (without URL bar)
- Better user engagement with push notifications
- Smooth navigations across the web pages
- Easy and quick access to websites via home screen icon
- Efficient functioning even in adverse network situations
- Permits offline visits/revisits
Difference Between Accelerated Mobile Pages and Progressive Web Apps
Now that you some idea about what AMP and PWA technologies are, you must find them quite similar. Both the technologies are designed to improve the mobile-user UX. The two technologies are solely dedicated to easing down the troubles experienced while visiting web versions of the websites. They are both designed to improve the page loading speed. But you must know that although the two technologies go hand-in-hand, they are quite different from one another. Here are the key differences between Accelerated Mobile Pages and Progressive Web Pages:
- While AMP, on one hand, is designed to improve the page loading time, the PWA on the other hand, is developed to provide a mobile-app-like experience while on the website.
- AMP just loads and presents users with the content quickly, the PWA provides a rich user experience and engagement.
- AMP is composed of streamlined CSS and lower-version of HTML and JavaScript while PWA contains App shell, Web App Manifest besides Service Worker.
- AMP is a perfect choice for websites that publish more static content including blogs, articles, news, or videos whereas, PWA or Progressive Web App is befitting for e-commerce websites and platforms that require more user engagement.
Which is Better: AMP or PWA?
Both two technologies are designed to serve similar purposes. They are both really efficient in what they are used for and have their own set of pros and cons. However, if you are an online business owner aiming to your audience with nothing below best, we recommend you to support both AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) and PWA (Progressive Web Applications).
Using the combination of AMP and PWA ensures that you are not losing your visitors due to slow page load time. While the AMP shall help your visitors access all your content quickly, the PWA must keep them engaged by improving their user experience. If you are wondering about, ‘how you can use the two different technologies for your business, here’s how it shall work in your favor.
When the user attempts to access your website on his mobile phone, an AMP-enabled version of the result appears before him instead of the original web version. Once the user opens the website (AMP-enabled version), you (publisher) can engage your visitor using the app-like web version of the website. You can encourage the user to add your website as his home screen icon (Progressive Web App). It shall help you avail your users with the following experience:
- Access to content/services while offline
- Efficient functioning in the adverse network availability
- App-like experience
- Faster page load time
- Smooth transition
- Easy navigation
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