Instant Apps

 

We are living in an era of instant noodles. People prefer experience before commitment.  The same is playing out the app markets. Google introduced feature called ‘Instant App’ on google store and Apple has recently followed with its version of IOS clips on apple store. 

So what are instant apps?

Google Play Instant enables native apps and games to launch on devices running Android 5.0 or higher without being installed. By allowing users to run an instant app or instant game, known as providing an instant experience, developers can improve app or game’s discovery, which helps drive more active users or installations.

More recently, at its worldwide developer conference (WWDC 2020, held in full virtual mode because of the coronavirus outbreak), Apple unveiled the next version of iOS. One of its innovations is App Clips, mini apps that can begin running on the device without having to be installed.

This is akin to sample tasting in grocery stores. Instead of making a purchase decision based on advertising or a promotional sample that’s later opened at home, you can try the product on the spot, and if you like it, buy it.

One common use of Instant Apps is to demo ultralight versions of games. In the form of an instant app, the user is offered, say, one level of the game. The main attraction is not having to install anything — you can play right there and then. And if you’d like to play the next level, you can download the full version.

E-commerce businesses can greatly benefit from Instant Apps. They provide their users with instant experience of their products. It means that users don’t need to search for an app on a company’s website or in Google search, which significantly increases brand awareness and quick demo encourages users to download the app. 

 

How does it work?

 

With Google Play Instant, users can tap on a button in the Play Store, Google Play app, or a website banner to use an app or game without installing it first. There are two options:

• Try now – This type of experience is typically a smaller trial version of an app. For example, developers may want to build the first level of their app as an instant experience and then prompt users to install the full app.
• Instant Play – The “Instant play” app are full experience , not trial versions. Users tap on the Instant play button to use the full app without installing it first

On the iOS side, app clips can be found Clips in Safari, Maps, and Messages, or in the real world in the following ways

• App Clip Code or QR code: Scan the code using the iPhone camera or Code Scanner in Control Center.
• NFC-integrated App Clip Code or NFC tag: Hold iPhone near the NFC tag.
• Safari or Messages: Tap the App Clip link.
• Maps: Tap the App Clip link on the information card 

In this blog, we will look particularly at Android’s instant apps.

 

How does this help my business?

Businesses can derive great benefits by using instant apps. Instant apps enhance user experience due to fast speed and on demand functionality. When users click on an instant app’s URL, they instantly receive the desired content. These apps are easy-to-use, highly responsive, and user-friendly.

 

Enhance online visibility

Instant apps make it possible to access your app content without downloading it. It will become more discoverable on search engines. People will be able to search your app like websites on the internet resulting in increased traffic. Instant mobile apps enhance traffic and access to more users.

Easy user acquisition

A key advantage of using instant apps is that these apps allow users to complete the desired tasks without forcing them to download and install the application to their devices. With this feature, you can attract users to your app. Since instant apps are built on Google Play Services, a simple app link is enough for users to access lots of features. So, apps can reach millions of users who can simply tap to run the app. The app can also be used via NFC or QR code.

Improve user retention

Instant apps allow users to use the app again and again anytime without installing it. Often users struggle with two main options – mobile web and native apps. Users can install an app for specific features, but when they need free space on their device, unimportant apps are removed first. If your app has poorly optimized ads, it will slow down the app and kill the user experience. Instant apps help you build trust among users as they offer a great experience. Users will be tempted to use your app due to easy-to-use options, fast-speed, and better user experience in your app. So, more users will stick around your service.

Sounds good! Is there a catch?

Well there are some restrictions and dependencies on the use of instant features.

• Each app module shouldn’t exceed the size of 15MB so that the users can download them quickly. The size puts a certain level of limitations on Instant App software development. For example, developers can’t add diverse multimedia elements into the app’s samples, like inserting heavy 3D games or full HD videos, at least for now. 
• The instant app must not consume more than 150 MB of storage space on the device.
• Another Instant App-specific is to prevent malicious use of these apps by third parties, Instant App developers restrict them from supporting background services. This ensures that an Instant App won’t send any push notifications, access to external storage, or change device settings without a user’s awareness.
• Android Instant Apps are compatible with any Android devices that have Android 5.0 and above 
• Android Instant Apps works for apps built using native code in Java or C++. But apps built with Cordova, PhoneGap, Titanium,  and other “build once, deploy everywhere” tools will not work with Instant Apps. Google requires that you make Instant Apps with Android Studio.

 

Great! How do I build these?

 

Although Instant Apps is a new feature in the mobile app world, its development process doesn’t differ much from building a traditional app. All the software developers need to do is to modularize their apps so that they allow access to a particular code section. It means that users don’t need to download the whole app but only the part that developers decide to share with them.

Moreover, if software developers already have their apps being in use, they don’t need to build a new Instant App to meet the market demand. As they can customize the existing applications by restructuring the app code.

 

I already have a full fledged app. Can I make it instant?

Upgrading an existing Android app to an instant app is a pretty easy process. For a seasoned developer, it will take about a couple of days to update an existing medium-size project to support Android Instant Apps functionality.

Developers need not create a new separate app, but they can utilize the existing app code, API, and project to build a new instant app. However, the efforts that you need to put into updating the app rely on the structure of the app. The following are the steps to update an existing app to the instant app.

 

Step 1: Install SDK and set up the environment

Step 2: Move code to feature module

Step 3: Build module

Step 4: Create an instant app module

Step 5: Define app links

One of the requisites for Instant Apps it’s that they need to be published using the App bundle format which already has a significant advantage over the old apk format.

 

Are Instant Apps secure?

 

One challenge for instant apps is the increased perception of inadequate security. After all they are installed ad-hoc. Fortunately, Google has been working on security in Instant Apps for many years. Google Play is central to the success of Instant Apps, and Google is dramatically improving the tools in Google Play to analyze new and existing apps for malicious code. Only apps published on the Google Play App Store will support Instant Apps.

 

This is big news for security. There are many independent Android app stores, most of which do not have security measures that come even close to those used by Google. By using Instant Apps you assure the source of the app (Google Play) and a prescribed level of security. That’s one less problem you need to tackle.

 

Conclusion

Instant Apps represent a tech breakthrough in the world of mobile apps. They allow their users to utilize their functionality in one click. This feature creates new opportunities for businesses to advertise and present their products, placing them at users’ fingertips.

If you decide to build your own business app or have an existing app,  you should also consider making it instant. This way you’ll make your product easier to reach for potential buyers while improving their customer experience. We at Quantian  technologies can help you with both! In case of any questions or to discuss further reach us at  contact@quantiantech.com 

AI Bots

The history of chatbots dates to Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA program, which was released in 1966. Weizenbaum, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), named the program after Eliza, a character in Pygmalion, a play about a Cockney girl who learns to speak and think like an upper-class lady. Weizenbaum’s computer program convinced many users that they were talking to a human being and not a machine at all.

In the half century since ELIZA was released, chatbots have come a long way. The introduction of machine learning capabilities in bots has vastly improved the human-like experience in their conversations. Most bots, though, still behave like machines over short interactions. 

 

Interacting with the earliest versions of chatbots was frustrating and time-consuming process. These bots would often respond to very specific request and could not answer anything beyond a fixed script. It was essentially the text equivalent of calling a customer service call center. As a result, communicating with a bot was an irritating (if not painful) option most consumers than speaking with a human customer service agent. Artificial intelligence has changed this.

 

AI-powered Natural Language Processing, or NLP, enables chatbots to mimic human conversation. They can identify the underlying sentiment and intention behind the communication, then deliver a response that is similar to what a human would have done. In addition, chatbots with NLP can now learn from past conversations and improve their ability to provide appropriate responses and solutions. 

How are these different from regular chatbots?

 

1. AI bots Use Contextual Information

 

Chatbots that aren’t powered by artificial intelligence essentially deliver a one-size-fits-all experience to all of the users. They begin with a generic greeting, offer a standard list of menu options, and can only to deliver a fixed  list of issues and questions.

AI bots can however use information around the content users access and read on your company’s site. If a user visits several pages focused on a specific service you offer, for example, the AI Bot understands that this user is primarily interested in that service. Then, it can begin the conversation around that service.

 

2. They do lot of pre-work for human interaction

A chatbot doesn’t have to hold an entire conversation with a customer from start to finish. They can initiate conversation, then ask for the details a support agent would need to assist the user. These details might include the user’s account number, order number, payment details, and contact information. This way, when a support agent steps in, they’ll already have the background information they need to assist the customer — and they won’t need to spend any additional time asking those basic questions.

Al, more advanced bots can even tell when it’s time to escalate a conversation. As technology advisor Bernard Marr explains, “AI-powered chatbots, can raise an alert when they detect, for example, a customer becoming irate – thanks to sentiment analytics – prompting a human operator to take over the chat or call.”

 

3. They can Route Inquiries intelligently

For large support teams, routing each ticket to the right person can be challenging time-consuming. AI-powered chatbots can help. AI chatbot can determine the need behind a user’s request. It can “understand” what that user is looking for, and what information they’ll need before their issue can be resolved. Then, it can intelligently determine which agent to assign your ticket.

 

If a user’s query is relatively simple the chatbot might opt to assign it to a newer member of your support team. If the inquiry is more complex and will require a subject matter expert, on the other hand, the bot would likely assign it to an agent with experience in that particular area. Plus, if the bot has access to each agent’s list of tickets, it can also take workload into account, and route inquiries to manage capacity efficiently.

 

This way, each customer will be directed to the person most qualified to resolve their issue — and to deliver that resolution in the least amount of time.

4. They can understand change in conversation

 

Conversational chatbot solutions powered by AI also support multi-turn dialogue. This is the ability to switch between various user questions within a single conversation. This is what sets apart a human-like AI versus building chatbots. An AI-powered virtual agent responds without getting confused if a person pivots the conversation. For instance, a person can ask about the price of checking a bag in the midst of checking flight status. In conclusion, AI can also understand more short-form and slang than chatbots.

 

5. Voice recognition

Voice recognition enables faster, hands-free interactions for users, making AI bots even more convenient. Examples of voice recognition can be found in a number of personal assistants, including Google Assistant, Siri and Alexa. Companies, including WestJet, are also launching skills on voice platforms to provide yet even more choice with how customers receive support.

Use cases

 

Automotive

Qualifying leads: A significant portion of leads to car dealers come from online channels. Therefore conversion optimization is crucial for automotive companies. As a result, automotive companies are using chatbots like Kia’s Kian which can answer customers’ complex questions and dramatically increase conversions.

e-Commerce

Chatbots can add a new layer of interactivity to e-commerce, allowing customers to interact beyond menus and buttons. Major use cases are:

• Set price alerts: Bots that give price alerts notify when there is a change by observing the change of prices on different websites. Settings can be made according to the person and give alarm in desired situations.
• Order physical goods like clothes with conversational commerce unlock more options
•  Buy gifts: Similar patterns in the users’ behavior can be analyzed and the product they are looking for can be recommended by chatbots. this facilitates the search for gifts.
• Track orders: Order tracking, which is one of the most common features of e-commerce platforms, can be done quickly via chatbots. Tars provides a chatbot solution for payment and order tracking by integrating on e-commerce websites.

 Travel & Hospitality

All the way from booking travel to solving travel-related problems, chatbots have the potential to help. 

 

Vacation planning: While most parts of travel bookings are already self-service, it is time-consuming to plan a vacation. Travelers need to discover the sights and experiences they would be interested in, plan an itinerary, pick hotels to stay in based on numerous criteria from kid-friendliness to location. While these tasks are frustrating for travelers, clever chatbots can make them much more pleasant experiences.

• 2Reservations & handling menu related questions: Chatobook aims to become OpenTable of chatbots. Beyond reservations, it can share menus and promotions, collecting feedback.
• Queries & complaints: In the long run, it is not good for business to make complaints more difficult to make. It frustrates customers and deteriorates a company’s reputation. Chatbots can service most queries and complaints fast, improving the satisfaction of your most dissatisfied customers.

Finance

Some examples include Capital One’s Eno & Bank of America’s Erica, Well Fargo’s Facebook Messenger bot.

• Information service: Most banks chatbots are capable of informing users about their balances, recent transactions, credit card payment dates, limits and so on.
• Credit applications: Just as robo-advisor chatbots are taking over investment advisors, chatbots are also capable of collecting necessary data for credit decisions
• Money transfer: Chatbots can easily handle money transfers via SMS, Facebook messenger or other popular chat platforms. Western Union has a money transfer bot that enables money transfer requests through Facebook Messenger. 
• Bill payments: BillHero is an example of a bank-agnostic mobile application and it brings bill-paying capabilities via chatbots on Facebook Messenger. 

Healthcare

• Handling healthcare & insurance coverage related inquiries: Applications such as HealthJoy, HealthTap and Your.MD help customers navigate the complex healthcare landscape in the US.
• Diagnosis: MedWhat and Ada Health are AI-powered chatbots that can serve as a medical assistant by gathering information via conversation with the patients. It seems chatbots are on the way of becoming the first contact point on diagnostic healthcare. After the SARS CoV-2 outbreak, people have become more aware of the dangers of infection. Diagnostic bots, like telemedicine, facilitate remote diagnostics, reducing potential infections.
• Therapy: Since therapy is almost completely text-based, it is a great area for chatbots to work in. Woebot is one of the leading chatbots, providing cognitive-behavioral therapy in the treatment of depression.

Hospitality

Insurance

23- Agent inquiry handling: Allstate developed Allstate Business Insurance expert (ABIe) to handle questions from 12K agents. Agents inquire ABIe about policy details sales quotes.

24-  Customer inqury handling: Allstate’s Allstate Business Insurance expert (ABIe) was expanded to serve end users as well.

Real estate

 Lead qualification: Qualifying leads take significant time in real estate. Chatbots such as Apartment Ocean greet potential clients and understand their level of interest, helping human agents prioritize who they will serve. Roof.AI is a chatbot platform that helps to create communication between real estate businesses and their customers via social media. 

These are just a few samples. Some more success stories can be viewed here – Top 30 successful chatbots of 2021 & Reasons for their success (aimultiple.com)

Conclusion

 

As brands find new ways to incorporate artificial intelligence into their daily operations, it’s certain to establish an increasingly large presence in the business world. But for now, chatbots are an excellent way to become an early adopter of this technology and start delivering better customer experiences than ever before.

Interested in learning more about artificial intelligence and chatbot technology? We’d love to discuss how we can help provide you a powerful AI customer service platform which in turn provides a conversational experience your customers expect. Let’s chat! Or if you prefer to write then reach us at contact@quantiantech.com

 

Progressive Web Apps

Progressive Web Apps

 

Background

 

The number of web and cloud apps is growing every day. Today, there are 2 billion websites in the world and among them, 400 million are active. Mobile apps are growing at an even faster pace. There are close to 4.2 billion mobile apps in the world consumed by 4 billion mobile internet users. If you look at the global mobile app market, it is captured by two companies, Google, and Apple. The global mobile operating system market is dominated by Google’s Android with a 74% share and Apple’s iOS is 23%. Native apps are not confined to mobile. Windows has always had a rich native application eco-system. Windows applications are typically written in C#, C++, or even C. Other platforms, like Linux, cannot be excluded. We can classify these as desktop or workstation-based applications.

 

There are several technologies to build mobile apps and native apps are the most common way to build mobile apps. Apple’s Swift is used to build native iOS apps and Java/Kotlin are used to build Android native apps. Third-party tools including Xamarin, Reactive Native, Flutter, and NativeScript are some of the popular platforms used to build native apps. Hybrid platforms are another popular way to build mobile apps that use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build hybrid mobile apps. The newest technology in this field is progressive web apps.

Whats is PWA?

 

In simple terms, Progressive Web Apps give you the feel of a native application while you are browsing the web on your mobile, without actually installing the application on your mobile phone.

 These Apps use features of web browsers and progressive enhancement strategy to bring a traditional App-like user experience to web applications. Progressive web applications have the same speed, responsiveness and comprehensive capabilities of websites with database access and automatic data. They are capable, reliable and installable, and can reach anyone, anywhere and on any device with a single codebase.

 

PWA Benefits:

1. Progressive & Responsive

Progressive web Apps should work on any web browser and progressively enhance themselves for browsers with more features. Once you build a PWA, you don’t need to worry about what browsers or devices users use.

 

2. Installable

 

You can install a PWA to your desktop or mobile device. The PWA will appear in your Start menu, desktop or applications, with a minimum of fuss and without much change to the code.

 

3. App-like Look and Feel

 

The App-like appearance is essential for user experience and functionality. A PWA is added to the home screen in the same way as a native App, and offers many of the same features like offline mode and push notifications. Due to the responsive nature of progressive web applications, they are more user friendly and attractive.

 

4. Better Performance

 

PWAs cache and serve text, images and other content in a specific, efficient manner, allowing them to operate like websites which significantly improves the running speed. Better performance has a huge impact on user experience and conversion rates, and as a result, a progressive web App can improve customer retention and customer loyalty.

 

5. Fast Installation

 

The usage threshold is low as no new App needs to be downloaded from an App distribution service. There is no need to search, download and update a PWA as with a native App; rather, users can download the App quickly and directly to their device. This presents a significant advantage, as it streamlines the process and reduces customer abandonment.

 

6. Offline Operation

 

One reason to prefer building a native mobile App over a progressive web App has historically been that a mobile App can work (to some extent) without an Internet connection, using cached data. Whereas websites can only work whilst an Internet connection is present. However, Service Workers have allowed for web Apps to compete with mobile Apps, providing a solution to accessing certain web pages when offline.

 

7. No Dependence on App Distribution Services

 

App Distribution Services like the App Store, Google Play or Microsoft Store have high requirements for what kinds of Apps can feature. Designing a PWA avoids meeting any complicated procedures that may be unnecessarily time and effort consuming.

 

At first glance, this appears to be a disadvantage. However, upon closer inspection, a progressive web App provides great user experience and is great for SEO. That’s certainly worth considering! As progressive web Apps are websites, they are discoverable in search engines. Plus, their safety, fast loading time and relevant and unique content put them ahead of native Apps.

 

8. Push Notifications

 

Progressive web Apps seek to improve engagement with your users using push notifications (just like the ones you get on your iOS or Android phone). For progressive web Apps, this is achieved using two different technologies in combination: Push and Notifications.

 

Push notifications are very short messages (a bit like text messages) that appear on your progressive web App users’ device when sent from your server. Users must permit your progressive web App to display the Push Notifications before they see them, so they are not a guaranteed method of communication. Use push notifications in your progressive web App design to encourage engagement with your App, and remind users to use your App more frequently.

9. Automatic Updates

 

Progressive web applications automatically update when the user visits them, making it unnecessary to download and install any batch changes. So, without bothering the user with a permission request for updates, you can reserve any push notifications for engaging and re-engaging users with your App.

 

10. Security

 

Progressive web applications must be hosted over HTTPS to ensure the secure delivery of data. Therefore, content and interactions are as safe as they can be with as on a secure website.

11. Low maintenance 

A lot of companies ignore the maintenance cost of an application. Whereas, before building any application you should always consider both the development and maintenance cost of the application.

In general, the maintenance of an app includes the following:

 

App Hosting charges

Resolving bugs and releasing new updates

The annual cost of any third-party plugins or so

Tracking performance and marketing

 

 For any type of application (mobile or web), the fee for maintenance will be approximately 20% of the development cost. Because the cost of building progressive web apps is less than native apps, so will be the maintenance cost.

 

How do PWA’s work?

 

PWAs use a quirky architecture consisting of four pillars, which work in tandem to provide the native app-like user experience. These four are:

 

Service Worker: When you visit a PWA powered website for the first time, the Service Worker shifts gears, downloading all the content in the background. With the content already cached on the device, the site loads much faster. Service Workers also enable websites to send you push notifications.

Web Manifest: The web app manifest gives you information about the application(name, author, icon, and description) in a JSON text file. The web manifest makes the installation of web applications to the home screen possible, meaning faster access and a better UX.

HTTPS: One of the prerequisites of a Service Worker is that they make websites available over Https, meaning the connection is secure.

Icon: The display end of the PWA that the user will be able to see once he installs the application.

 

Limitations of Progressive Web Apps

 

The idea of PWAs sounds amazing. So, why isn’t every mobile app a PWA then? Here are some of the PWA’s limitations.

 

PWA is not native. Some app developers and users just love native. Native user interfaces are often changed when a new operating system is launched. Most of the native functionality is backward compatible.

 

PWA needs and runs in a browser. It is still a Web application and you need to be a Web developer to write PWAs.

Progressive web apps restrict the developers from accessing the hardware resources required to run the application. These hardware resources are platform-specific APIs and are required in a rare case.So, if your application requires access to any of this hardware, then you must stick to native or cross-platform frameworks.

 

When to choose building a PWA

 

Not sure whether to opt for a progressive web app or not? Lets see some of the reasons for switching to progressive web apps.

1. Targeting a Developing Country

There are still a lot of countries around the globe that still don’t have access to 3G or 4G networks. So, if your app is heavy most of the users won’t be able to access it. In this case, using a progressive web app is definitely an advantage.

 

2. Target Users are Coming from Mobile Devices

Let’s assume that your business already has a web application and most of the users are coming from a mobile device. In this case, using the push notification, offline functionality and native app-like features make the life of your users easy.

 

3. High User Engagement and Conversion

A lot of companies like Flipkart, Uber, Twitter, Pinterest, etc, have seen a massive increase in the number of users and engagement with a progressive web app. So, if your native app isn’t performing well, you should consider migrating to a progressive app.

 

Do you relate to any of the above reasons? If yes, then you must consider building a progressive web app for your business. 

PWA success stories

 

A lot of companies have switched over to PWA to enhance user engagement, including:

Twitter: Twitter launched Twitter Lite, a PWA in 2017, which helped them connect with mobile users more deeply while consuming fewer data. The PWA relies on cached data and optimized images, and the Twitter lite PWA is just 600KB, compared to the 23.5 MB size of the native app available on the Play store.

Tinder: The now-infamous dating app also launched their PWA in 2017, and found that there was a higher user interaction with the PWA over the native app, with users spending more time messaging on the web application compared to the native app, along with increased session lengths and purchases in par with the native Tinder app.

Trivago: The German-based hotel search engine, one of the largest in the business, wanted to be at the forefront when it came to their mobile website and implemented a PWA in a phased manner to make use of the speed and use of lesser resources. Today, Trivago’s PWA powered website is available in 33 languages, across 55 countries, and the company has seen. User Engagement increased by more than 150%

Uber: Uber uses PWA technology for ride-share booking for low-speed, 2G networks. This PWA allows users to access Uber’s services on low-end devices that are not compatible with their native app.

Starbucks: Starbucks built a PWA for their web ordering system to provide offline ordering that is similar to their native app. Starbucks’ PWA allows you to browse the menu and customize an order without internet.

Spotify: Spotify is powered by PWA-technology to overcome the limitations of working with Apple. Spotify’s PWA app utilized the adaptive UI to changes the background as you progress through the app.

Conclusion

 

The need for progressive web apps is growing each day. This article touched on the basics of PWA and why a business should look into adding PWA to its product strategy. Not only is PWA a need today, with its offline abilities, local caching, and push notifications offerings, but it also builds one code base to target both desktop and mobile devices, making it more attractive to any business that is not dependent on native mobile apps and wants to save money and resources.

Need help with a PWA?

 

If you want to build a progressive web app and need help, advice, or developers, feel free to contact us at contact@quantiantech.com or on our LinkedIn page or visit our company website, www.quantiantech.com

Accelerated mobile pages

Accelerated mobile pages

Mobile traffic has surpassed desktop traffic in overall reach. While conversions remain a sore spot for mobile commerce, they are increasing over time. For example, mobile conversions increased by 47% year-on-year during Cyber Week and amounted to 39% of all conversions in 2020. From this, it’s clear that mobile commerce is here to stay.

However, users are changing how they make mobile purchases. App usage is declining, with 53% of worldwide shoppers using a retailer’s mobile website rather than their app. Consumers want the most engaging experience on mobile, directly from their browser, Speed of page load is a major reason for this preference.

According to data collected by Google,  40% of consumers leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load.

Three seconds!

That’s all the time you have to keep the attention of a user who liked your ad and clicked it. And if your webpage fails to load in that time, you created the ad, regardless of how compelling it was, in vain. The bad news is the fact that according to data, most retail mobile sites take around 7 seconds to load, that’s more than double the amount of time 40% of users wait before abandoning the page. That’s not all, users will not only abandon the page, but, research suggests 60% of users won’t come back once they’ve had a slow experience on a webpage.

What is AMP?

Google launched the Accelerated Mobile Pages open-source project to ensure that mobile webpages operate at optimal speed. The AMP project allows developers to create web pages and ads that are consistently fast and high-performing across devices, and distribution platforms.

 More than 1.5 billion AMP pages have been created to date.

When you create mobile pages on the AMP format you get:

1. Higher performance and engagement: Pages created in the AMP open-source project load almost instantly, giving users a smooth, more engaging experience on both their mobiles and desktop.
2. Flexibility and results: Businesses have the opportunity to decide how to present their content and what technology vendors to use, while maintaining and improving KPIs.

The reason why AMP pages load instantly is because AMP restricts HTML/CSS and JavaScript, allowing faster rendering of mobile web pages. Unlike regular mobile pages, AMP pages are automatically cached by Google AMP Cache for faster load times on Google search.

Google reports that AMP pages served in Google search typically load in less than one second and use ten times less data than the equivalent non-AMP pages. CNBC reported a 75% decrease in mobile page load time for AMP Pages over non-AMP pages, while Gizmodo reported that AMP pages loaded three times faster than non-AMP pages. 

How does AMP work?

AMP pages are built with the following three core components:

 

AMP HTML

The AMP HTML is essentially HTML just with some restrictions for reliable performance. 

 

Most tags in AMP HTML are regular HTML tags, however, some HTML tags are replaced with AMP-specific tags. These custom tags are called AMP HTML components and they make common tag patterns easy to implement in a performant way. AMP pages are discovered by search engines and other platforms by the HTML tag. You can choose to have a non-AMP version and an AMP version of your page, or just an AMP version.

 

AMP JavaScript (JS)

The AMP JS library ensures the fast rendering of AMP HTML pages. The JS library implements all the AMP’s best performance practices such as inline CSS and font triggering, this manages resource loading and gives you the custom HTML tags to ensure a fast page rendering. The AMP JS makes everything from the external resources asynchronous so that nothing on the page can block anything from rendering. 

AMP Cache

The Google AMP Cache is used to serve cached AMP HTML pages. The AMP Cache is a proxy-based content delivery network used for delivering all valid AMP documents. The Cache fetches AMP HTML pages, caches them, and improves page performance automatically.

 

The three core components of AMP work in unison to make it possible for pages to load quickly. 

The next section will highlight some optimization techniques that combine to make AMP pages so fast.

• All AMP JavaScript is executed asynchronously

JavaScript can modify every aspect of the page, it has the power to  delay page rendering – and slow page loading. To ensure JavaScript doesn’t delay page rendering, AMP only allows asynchronous JavaScript. 

AMP pages don’t include any author-written JavaScript, instead all interactive page features are handled by custom AMP elements. These custom AMP elements may include JavaScript, but they’re carefully designed to ensure they don’t initiate any performance degradation.

 

• All resources are sized statically

All external resources such as images, iframes, and ads have to state their HTML size so AMP can determine each element’s size and position before the page resources are downloaded. AMP loads the layout of the page without waiting for any resources to download.

 

• All third-party JavaScript is kept out of the critical path

Third-party JavaScript uses synchronous JS loading, this tends to slow down your load time. AMP pages allow third-party JavaScript but only in sandboxed iframes, by doing this the JavaScript loading can’t block the execution of the main page. 

 

• CSS must be inline and size-bound

CSS blocks rendering, it also blocks all page load, and it has the tendency to cause bloating. AMP HTML only allows inline styles, this removes 1 or mostly multiple HTTP requests from the critical rendering path to most web pages.

 

• Font triggering is efficient

Web font optimization is critical for fast loading as web fonts are typically large in size. On a typical page that includes a few sync scripts and a couple of external style sheets, the browser waits to download the fonts until all scripts are loaded.

The AMP framework declares zero HTTP requests until all the fonts start downloading. This is only made possible because all the JavaScript in AMP has the async attribute and only inline sheets are allowed, there are no HTTP requests blocking the browser from downloading the fonts.

• Resource loading is prioritized

AMP controls all resource loading, it prioritizes resource loading and it loads only what’s needed and pre-fetches all lazy-loaded resources.

When AMP downloads resources, it optimizes the downloads so the most important resources are downloaded first. All images and ads are only downloaded if they are likely to be seen by the user, if they are above the fold, or if the visitor is likely to scroll them.

AMP also has the ability to pre-fetch lazy-loaded resources, these resources are loaded as late as possible, but are pre-fetched as early as possible. This way things load very fast, but the CPU is only used when resources are shown to users.

• Pre-rendering pages

The new AMP pre-connect API is used heavily to ensure that HTTP requests are as fast as possible as soon as they are made. Because of this, the page is rendered before the user explicitly states they would like to navigate to it, the page may be available by the time the user actually sees it, making the page load instantly.

Significant business benefits

Increased mobile browser visibility for content marketers: Google has started displaying AMP results in organic listings. You can identify these results by the AMP symbols, in green. These green AMP symbols will definitely lead to an improved click-through-rate because these mobile search engine results stand out from the rest.

Mobile search engine users will then begin to look specifically for AMP plugin pages since these pages load up quicker than the typical mobile pages.

Improved mobile search engine rankings

Since sites that are mobile-friendly are rewarded with higher rankings in organic mobile search results, pages developed with AMP will most likely rank higher than non-AMP pages, in the mobile results pages (MRPs).

 

Improved Advertisement visibility

 Most people started a website or blog in order to make money. But the websites currently seem to have too many distractions. E.g. header image, navigational menu, sidebar, social share buttons, forms, popups, and other unnecessary elements.

But, with AMP, you can get rid of distractions on your mobile browser pages. When displaying ads from a third party on your Accelerated Mobile Pages,  you deliver ads that load quickly but also grab the user’s attention.

 

User tracking made simple

Tracking users and site performance is pretty easy on AMP because there are analytical tools in place, where you can study your AMP versions in greater detail.

Publishers can utilize tag manager analytics to choose from two tags. These tags help to automatically track essential data, such as clicks/conversions, video and link tracking, visitor counts, new vs. returning visitors and more.

 

Technology companies, such as WordPress, Parse.ly, Chartbeat, LinkedIn, Adobe Analytics, Pinterest and, of course, Twitter, are also already supporting AMP.

 

Conclusion

AMP is truly powerful. As an upgrade to mobile-friendly pages, it helps you meet user’s expectations for speed and simplicity along with publisher’s expectations of reader engagement and monetization. To understand this further or discuss feel free to  contact Quantian Technologies at contact@quantiantech.com