What is AMP and How Can it Benefit Your Website?

The introduction of AMP, a project spearheaded by Google and Twitter, has already started to impact the way we consume mobile content. AMP is short for Accelerated Mobile Pages and has been designed with the purpose of creating fast loading mobile website pages. An AMP page, simply put, is a stripped down version of a page that already exists on a website. The page is removed of any functionality that may cause it to load slowly. This provides a lightweight version of a webpage that essentially just presents the basic content. To better understand this take a look at our example below. On the left is the normal version of the mobile web page and on the right is the AMP version.

Favourable Mobile Search Results (Mobile SEO)

So why is it important to introduce AMP functionality onto your website? There are two main reasons for this. First AMP pages are already starting to garner favour in rankings on Google mobile search. Google can identify AMP content and label it to notify users in the search results.

This notifies users that selecting an AMP listing will provide a much faster loading experience. Google likes fast loading pages and prioritizes an enhanced user experience. AMP listings may be treated favourably by Google and have an opportunity to rank higher.

Enhanced User Experience

The second main reason to implement AMP on your website is to enhance user engagement. Studies show 40% of users abandon websites that take more than 3 seconds to load. Since load times can be even longer on mobile devices, websites with robust and image heavy mobile landing pages are losing users. Instead of putting up with slow mobile load times and losing users, introducing AMP can substantially cut down load times and the users who are leaving your site. Creating a faster experience for your users promotes increased interaction with your site which, can lead to more conversions or online sales.

Bonus Tip: Improve Your Adwords Quality Score

Aside from the main two reasons to implement AMP, there is an additional consideration if you’re running AdWords campaigns with Google. When running an AdWords ad, the landing page your ad links to plays a major role on where your ad ranks and your ad’s CPC (cost per click). One of the factors that affects how much Google likes your landing page is how long it takes to load. On websites where we’ve implemented AMP and manage AdWords, we are already starting to see improved ad performance and lower cost. Providing a faster loading landing page for a mobile user is a big positive in Google’s eyes, and we all want to make google happy!

As AMP continues to grow it becomes increasingly important for websites to implement it. AMP can greatly improve your rankings on SERP’s and your user experience, two factors that greatly influence the success of your website.

Interested in knowing if AMP pages will help you? Contact us to find out.