I’m guessing you’ve heard the phrase “Accelerated Mobile Pages” bounced around over the last few months. But what are AMP’s, how will they affect you and what do you need to do?
What are Accelerated Mobile Pages?
Accelerated Mobile Pages is an open-source initiative backed by the likes of Google and Twitter, that’s purpose is to speed up websites on mobile devices. The aim of AMPs is to readdress page speed on mobile devices, thus providing a better user experience for the end-user. By restricting Javascript, AMP prioritises performance and relies on HTML, CSS and caching to serve lightning fast mobile pages. Fundamentally, AMP is a bare bones HTML framework that allows developers to build super light-weight pages.
Back in October 2015, Google and the original partners tested a sample of pages built with AMPs and saw a 15%-85% increase in page speed. Since then they’ve gotten even faster, by utilising the built-in “pre-render” feature of most browsers and effectively loading all visible content by the time a user has clicked to view the next page. The result of this is pretty much instantaneous page load and a flawless user experience across mobile devices.
How will Accelerated Mobile Pages effect me?
Accelerated Mobile Pages will have multiple benefits for both the website owner and the website user. For the user, AMPs will mean faster page loads and seamless browsing experience. For web design agencies or website owners, this will mean a reduction in bounce rates and an increase in on-page engagements. Either way, it’s going to make the mobile web a better place.
For an SEO agency, there may be even greater benefits. This is speculative at the moment, but based on Google’s stance in AMPs and previous mobile friendly SERP labels, there may be additional SEO advantages. We know that Google is integrating AMPs into the search engine this month, and according to Search Engine Land, websites that include AMPs may receive a small ranking boost.
What do I need to do to use Accelerated Mobile Pages?
Thankfully, it’s not difficult to integrate accelerated mobile pages into your website. If you’re using WordPress to power your site, there’s a new plugin developed by the world’s most popular CMS that will enable publishers to easily create AMP versions of each post.
If you’re not using WordPress, head over to the AMP project to learn how to integrate it into your site.