What is Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) and Why is It Important?

What is an Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP)?

In today’s fast-paced and technologically advanced world, smartphones are the most used devices to make purchases, surf the web and connect to social media platforms. As the smartphone industry grows and overtakes desktops, it is becoming more important that the same attention and ad-spend given to your creating the perfect desktop experience is also reflected in the mobile web pages that a brand or business develops. Google is a company that recognised the need for more attention and speed to be given to mobile pages, and noted one significant factor that seems to prohibit mobile pages from succeeding; speed. 

Speed is a significant and important SEO factor that can determine the experience that a user has with a specific webpage and it can also impact how well a search engine crawler is able to move through and index your website, impacting your overall rank and SEO. The speed considerations of mobile pages seemed to shadow that of desktop websites, with far more attention given to how a page looks and how fast it loads given to desktop websites. 

To solve this gap in the market, Google developed what is referred to as accelerated mobile pages, an open-source project plugin to ensure that mobile pages were loading at the fastest speed possible. So what is an accelerated mobile page and how does it work? This platform not only looked to ensure that ads and content were loading as quickly as possible, but it also looked to ensure that the quality of the content that is loaded is perfect across multiple platforms. As accelerated mobile pages developed and become more commonly used across different websites, the speed and ability of users to engage with mobile sites became far better, exceeding even the speed of desktop websites! 

Why Do Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Matter?

Smartphones and cellular devices are quickly becoming the way of the future when it comes to using the internet. With new and always improving capabilities, smartphones have the ability to do just about everything that your standard desktop does, and it is easily portable! Ensuring that you are optimising your content to meet the needs of this ever-growing and constantly evolving industry is becoming more important than ever and it is recommended that you do all you can to increase the quality of your mobile website and increase the speed at which it is loading. This has many benefits and has been proven to increase the quality of your website and the ability of users to engage with your website pages! It is therefore extremely important to consider using this open-source project to better optimise the speed of your mobile web pages. 

What Is the Goal of AMP for Websites?

The overall goal of an AMP is to increase the speed at which your page is loading and decrease the bounce rate. Bounce rate refers to the number of times that users click on a link to your website but leave before the page is even fully loaded and it is detrimental to your SEO and online functioning. If a user is trying to get onto your webpage but it is taking too long to load, they will more than likely leave your page and go to another website that will load more quickly. When this happens, a user has bounced from your site and this information is given to search engines like google and may impact your SEO and ranking on search engine results pages. Ensuring that you have a website that is quick to load will avoid this happening as one of the biggest reasons why websites have high bounce rates is because of issues around speed. Accelerated mobile pages help to avoid issues around bounce rates and can increase your SEO and ranking if your pages load quickly! This is the overall goal when it comes to accelerated mobile pages and it is one of the reasons why Google developed this project. 

What Are The Differences Between AMP and Non-AMP Mobile Browsing?

Google, and users themselves, can actually see when a page uses accelerated mobile pages compared to when they do not. A small but noticeable AMP logo is attached to websites that have used the plugin to optimise their websites, ensuring that users are aware of which of the pages on a search engine results page will provide users with the best experience and fastest page loading times. These websites that have the accelerated mobile page plugin are actually given preference on search engine results pages because a search engine has a guarantee that your page will load far quicker than those who do not use this tool. 

The main difference between accelerated mobile pages and non-accelerated mobile pages is that accelerated pages will load far more quickly compared to others! This speed reduces the bounce rate of a website, improves SEO and ranking and provides a far better user experience. Before Accelerated mobile pages came to be, Google and other search engines introduced that websites should be mobile-friendly, and made this a ranking factor that impacts placement on search engine results pages. This concept constituted an array of different features, including page speed, quality of images and the placement of content. Though this is still an extremely important factor to consider, having a mobile-friendly site that also uses accelerated mobile pages is extremely important! 

What are The Effects of  Accelerated Mobile Page?

As accelerated mobile pages have become a more popular ranking factor and search engines have become more inclined to rank those with this unique plugin higher than others, it is important to note the effects that including this plugin have on your mobile website. The following are just a few things to consider if you are in two minds about using the accelerated mobile pages plugin. 

To Your SEO Strategy

As brands and businesses strategise the best and most effective ways to ensure that their websites are visible on search engine results pages, they have to come up with an SEO strategy that can help them to target each SEO element effectively. When looking at how amp affects SEO, it is important to remember that site speed is an incredibly important SEO factor and having a fast speed can put you above the competition. As mobile devices become the more used way to research on search engines, these platforms are making sure that if you are a website that has an AMP, you are sure to rank higher than those who are not equipped with this plugin. An accelerated mobile pages SEO is, therefore, better compared to pages that are not optimised with this plugin. 

To Your Site’s Search Visibility

As mentioned previously, an accelerated mobile page is easy to spot as it has a small tag that lets users know that a page is optimised with this specific plugin. Not only does this ensure that users are made aware of this optimisation but Google, and other search engines, take note of this and will likely rank your website higher on search engine results pages! This increases your visibility and the chances you have of gaining more organic traffic through search results. 

What are The Part Structures of  Accelerated Mobile Pages(AMP)?

AMP HTML

In order for your website to be equipped with this open-source plugin, you need to adjust your basic HTML. Through correcting and placing custom tags and markup language within your HTML code, your page will be on its way to being optimised with accelerated mobile pages. 

AMP JS

AMP JS refers to a javascript framework that is set up for mobile pages. This AMS handles manages resources and asynchronous loading tasks. 

AMP CDN

Optimising and changing your content delivery network will allow for your AMP optimised pages to be directly taken and cached, automatically speeding up the time that it takes for information to reach users. 

How To Create Accelerated Mobile Pages(AMP)?

When looking at how to create accelerated mobile pages, the different methods used depend on the type of webpage that you have, but all in all, it is a very easy process, with the necessary steps all laid out in an easy to use interface. In order to create an AMP page, you will need to create a new page and then link it to the canonical page, which should be a non-AMP version of the same page! You can then test the effectiveness of this AMP by using monitoring and performance metrics to better understand how impactful your accelerated mobile pages are. 

How to Monitor AMP Performance?

Through getting an accelerated mobile pages checker you will be able to perform an amp test to monitor the effectiveness of the accelerated mobile page plugin, checking on its performance. You can monitor your site’s progress by looking at both your AMP status report and your rich results status report, both of which provide you with vital information about the speed of your page and the effectiveness of the AMP. 

What are The Benefits of Accelerated Mobile Pages(AMP)?

Higher level of engagement 

As users are able to move quickly throughout your webpage, they will find it easier to engage with the content that you are producing. This increases the user experience and betters the interaction that users have with the content on your page. The happier that users are to use your page ensures that they remain confident in your brand and business and will more than likely make a purchase or complete a desired or intended action. 

Better performance 

Your site functions better with accelerated mobile pages, with faster page load time and less interference from large images that may be causing a backlog of information to be delivered slowly. With better performance, you have a much higher chance of increasing your rankings on search engine results pages and the traffic that you receive will not be lost due to pages taking too long to load. 

How Markethinkers Team Can Help You With Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP)?

Whether you are looking for the best company to help integrate your website with accelerated mobile page software or are looking for the perfect marketing team to take over your SEO entirely, Markethinkers has tons of different options to suit different brands, businesses or individuals. With our team of professional SEO consulting and SEO copywriting experts readily available to help with any and all SEO needs, you can be sure that we are the perfect team to help grow your business and improve your website. Please do not hesitate to contact our team for more information about our offerings.