Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is among the most popular and promising open source frameworks being used today nearly by all kinds of businesses to boost the rate at which mobile phones loads a specific website or page. This makes browsing easier and faster for people, even if they are on the go. The tremendous increase in the number of people being able to access your sites and contents is what makes it perfect for a business. It does boost the loading speed by removing elements that cause pages to load slower like JavaScript and other 3rd party applications being used on a desktop, which are all unnecessary for a mobile site.
By loading up your page faster on mobile devices, it follows that you will likewise have a better ranking.
Importance of AMP
I am pretty sure that you have already tried browsing using your mobile device. Were you satisfied with its loading speed? Perhaps no. A stable and fast internet connection might not always be available when you are on the go, hence browsing using a mobile device is expected to be a little sluggish unlike when you are loading up the same page in a desktop at home with a stable web connection. Most of us just rely on data plans provided by a telecommunication company here in Montreal. For sure, the same is true for you, wherever you may be located. This is where AMP comes in. It optimizes the whole experience of mobile browsing by making a standard version of your page with AMP.
So obviously, the main importance or advantage of this framework is that mobile pages will load faster than expected. Studies revealed that just a little less than 50% of people will close your site if they will not be able to access your page within 3 seconds. Having AMP improves your page’s loading speed, the bounce rate will be lessened, thus you will receive more numbers of clicks on your website.
With higher number of clicks or visits, your rank gets higher too. You might have heard of Google algorithms like Mobilegeddon. This rewards sites that are mobile and user friendly. Higher ranking leads to a much greater pay, which is our ultimate goal, after all.
Who Will Benefit from AMP? Is AMP for You?
Though AMP has become the trend today and it offers some advantages, not everyone is still interested in using AMP due to some restrictions. Since it strips off applications like JavaScript, the original design and components of your website will be greatly affected. No more forms, comment pages, etc.
For you to get them back, you will have to reformat your whole site’s template. Contents will be revised as well to make the file size less than 50 KB. Images will be required to use the amp-img element and videos should be embedded using the amp-video custom tag. There is so much work to do. And for big companies who have already established a good site and a career might not be interested in doing these anymore.
So who will benefit from AMP the most? It is the publishing sites – those that run contents. Blog sections and updates can be easily converted into AMP.
AMP versus NON AMP Mobile Browsing
Again, the highlight of having an AMP page for you site is that it will strip off unnecessary elements for mobile browsing to make the experience more user friendly. Let us have a breakdown of what will happen if you use this framework:
AMP will force you to utilize a streamlined version of CSS
JavaScript is banned.
You will use an off the shelf JavaScript library that AMP will give you for your images to load.
To sum things up, speed and readability are the top priorities of AMP.
How to Get Started with AMP
If you are good with the limitations of this new framework, then you can proceed with setting it up on your website. The very first thing that you would have to do is to install the AMP WordPress plug in for activation. Edit the .htaccess file. Most are using an FTP program like Filezilla. In case you would want to check if your page will work across the board, you can paste this code on your .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/amp$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (android|blackberry|googlebot\-mobile|iemobile|iphone|ipod|\#opera\ mobile|palmos|webos) [NC]
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9-]+)([\/]*)$ https://example.com/$1/amp [L,R=302]
Do not forget to change the example.com to your page’s domain name.
Lastly, edit the CSS to personalize your page. Once the plugin has been activated, go to Appearance and then AMP. You will see how your site will look like on mobile browsers and make the necessary adjustments like the background and text colors, header, etc.
You can do this as well using FTP by going to your wp-content -> plugins -> amp -> template.php
That is all of you need to start using AMP!
Will AMP Work on Non-WordPress Sites?
Yes, it is possible. The process is a more tedious but rewarding. You have to go the AMP project’s site to know how to use it via hard code, hands on.
Conclusion
As AMP continues to create a scene in the business world, the expectation is that it will improve further, hopefully lessening the restrictions so it can support more ad formats and designs.
With the continuing success of m-commerce, the priority given by Google for AMP SEO 2017, there is no reason for you not to give it a try.
AMP will certainly help you boost your site speed on mobile browsers, thus increasing your count of clicks or views. The whole user friendly experience will get you on top of the ranking. As discussed earlier, for your page to take full advantage of this new framework, you will have to make adjustments and work out the limitations. If you are good with the restrictions, then you are good to go and will surely have a blast with the results.
