You’ve probably heard all the hype lately about Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs), but are AMPs really all they are cracked up to be and worth implementing to achieve better SEO results? Let’s take a closer look.
What Is an Accelerated Mobile Page?
An AMP is an open-source library from Google that creates web pages that load much faster than non-amps. These are basically stripped down versions of an HTML page.
Ask any digital marketing agency and they will tell you that page load speed is extremely important in the eyes of Google, because mobile responsiveness is a major ranking factor. Not only that, but, page load speeds are important to the overall user experience as well. Just try loading your website on a mobile device without an AMP. Is it slow loading and clunky, especially when you are on the go? If so, you are not alone.
How Are AMPs Different from Non-AMPs?
Accelerated mobile pages don’t have much to them because remember, they are stripped down versions of a traditional HTML page. So an AMP makes you use a simplified version of CSS and you can’t use Javascript at all. However, when building an AMP page, you are provided with a generic (so to speak) Javascript library to use.
What this all means is that you are putting load speed and readability over everything else when you convert to an accelerated mobile page which then makes those pages more responsive.
The good news is that if you have a WordPress website, you can convert your pages to AMPs in under five minutes by using the Official AMP Plugin for WordPress and following the installation instructions. And, if you don’t have a WordPress website, you can go to the AMP Project Site for more information about how to integrate it yourself using hard-code. Unfortunately, this might take you a bit more time to implement, but the results will be well worth the effort.
The Pros and Cons of Accelerated Mobile Pages
As we mentioned above, if you want to reduce your page load times, you are going to have to give up a few things in exchange. However, if you’re not sure if it’s really worth it, it might help to weigh the pros and cons of using accelerated mobile pages.
Pros:
- AMPs create a better user experience.
- Faster loading pages highlight only your most important content.
- AMPs, because they load more quickly, will improve your Google search rankings.
- AMPs provide a better, more mobile-friendly display.
- AMPs can be customized.
Cons:
- AMPs are different from your original pages, there are going to be some components of your original pages that don’t translate on an AMP. For example, the sharing feature, comments, etc.
- Your AMPs will have a different cache and different notation on the website. You will want to pay particular attention to this because it will affect what you are getting for your SEO results.
- Your desktop and mobile page displays will be different.
- You will lose your analytics ability on an AMP because it will be different from your non-amp page.
- AMPs only work if users click on the AMP version of the webpage versus the canonical version.
How Do AMPs Affect Your Mobile SERPs and Overall Performance?
The first and most obvious thing you will notice is, just as the name indicates, this is a mobile-only feature. That aside, how do AMPs affect your mobile SERPS?
Well, as of right now, Google has stated that AMPs are not a ranking factor. However, it’s not too far-fetched to think they probably will become a ranking factor in the future.
Other things you will notice is that with AMPs you will see an increase in your organic traffic and conversions, they help your pages perform better, you will see a reduction in bounce rates and an increase in user engagement metrics, and more.
Why Is Using an Accelerated Mobile Page Important?
Even though AMPs are not currently a ranking factor, there are plenty of reasons to use them.
- AMP caching increases the loading speed of your mobile pages and makes them less clunky.
- AMP pages with structured data will have the ability to appear in the Rich Search Results like Google’s News Carousel. This is a big deal!
- Lazy loading and it prefetches lazy loaded resources.
- AMP experiences have fewer requests, especially when it comes to images.
- AMP effectively deals with JavaScript failing.
- Fonts don’t require any HTTP requests.
- AMP pages are probably, but not officially, preferred by Google’s search results.
- AMPs can be customized using the Google Search Console.
The Bottom Line
For quite some time, many users and webmasters alike have been unaware of AMPs, and, at first, were hesitant to use them. However, that is beginning to change as AMPs become more mainstream, increased rankings can be seen, and as positive SEO results become more apparent.
Are you ready to do this?
If you want to begin using AMPs to boost your SEO but just don’t have the time and/or manpower to do it yourself, please Contact Us today. We are a digital marketing agency and would love to show you just how quickly AMPs could boost your SEO, and your rankings as well!
I tested AMP on the website for over 6 months My conclusions are like this. The website worked faster on a mobile basis, but it had no effect on its position. Additionally, plug-in conflicts appeared from time to time. Also, fewer people on AMP pages visited the next pages of the website. That’s why I believe responsive pages are better and more relevant than using AMP. I turned off AMP completely by myself some time ago.