A faster and more responsive mobile web is a feature that any user could get on board with. In response to this, Google has developed an open source solution entitled AMP i.e. the Accelerated Mobile Pages.
The AMP framework is out and has been speculated to have two benefits for SEO. It is a free, open-source framework that allows you to create mobile pages that deliver content quickly. It consists of HTML, JS, and Cache libraries, specific extensions and AMP focused properties, accelerate load speed for mobile pages, even if they feature rich content like infographics, PDFs, audio or video files. The aim for AMP is for publishers to be able to load their sites faster on mobile since mobile responsive could be clunky and slow because desktop resources are heavy. Also, there is no deny the fact that most of the elements of a desktop website are unnecessary for a mobile site. Until the past, AMP was just for user experience, but now Google has backed it up and is motivating websites to follow it. Once Google has cached the AMP version of your site, the content lives on Google’s servers as well as your own.
Here is how a mobile page with and without AMP looks like:
The page without AMP looks visually appealing and all the credit for this goes to the responsive design of the page. However, on the other hand, there are quite a few elements that the AMP enabled page lack in it. Its navigation bar is more detailed. Meanwhile, the AMP versions social buttons can be accessed all at once and are easier to tap, which simplifies sharing.
How is AMP helpful?
AMP is useful as it helps websites to load faster that improves usability and persuades users to stay longer on a particular site. Thus, the fact can be simply stated: Faster load time leads to a better engagement, further reducing the bounce rate and improves mobile ranking.
However, AMP does not improve engagement on its own. It does not let our content to become more useful or entertaining. Even if your load times are perfect but the content is not interesting, still your SERPs won’t increase due to the high bounce rate. Therefore, in order to make AMP work outstandingly for your site, you need to have the best of both, that is fast load time plus excellent content.
AMP has the possibility to make your visitors happy, which means a lot to Google and once your image is good on Google it surely gets a higher ranking for you, brings in more traffic and helps in increasing revenue.
Who will benefit the most from AMP?
The sites that will benefit the most from AMP are publishing sites, that are the sites that produce content. This cannot be applied to your client by simply making their entire site into AMP. Doing this might affect conversions negatively. Rather, one can transition your client’s blog section or news and updates section into AMP.
Does it make any Sense to Implement AMP?
Here are the pros and cons of implementing AMP:
Pros of AMP
- It speeds up website load time
AMPs are lean, slick, and fast. Users want pages that do not make them wait. So AMPs basically guarantee that your site brings in more visitors.
- It increases mobile ranking
AMP is not a ranking factor, but it has a positive influence on mobile ranking due to its faster load time. If Google starts prioritizing AMPs, it will have even more of an effect on SERPs.
- It improves server performance
If your site generates a lot of traffic from mobile, AMP will reduce the load on your servers and improve their performance.
Cons of AMP
- Ad Revenue is reduced
Even though the AMP supports ads, but the potential to bring in revenue is severely limited. And it is not worth to implement ads on AMP pages.
- Analytics are a bit stripped
AMP supports Google Analytics but requires a different tag, which needs to be implemented on all AMP pages. It will take a lot of time to place this tag and would be able to collect and analyze data.
- Amazing speed is achieved, and all the credit goes to the Cache
Google does not provide any specific technology to make your pages super fast. It simply saves cached versions of AMP tagged pages and when a visitor accesses these, it simply serves them up from the cache.
On a concluding note, you should consider implementing AMP on some of your site’s critical pages such as blog posts, contact us, etc. This will help you to move from desktop to mobile and support your SERPs.