What is AMP?
Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, is an open-source framework that aims to load publisher’s sites quickly on mobile. As mobile responsive is slow because desktop resources are abundant and plenty.
AMP has fewer JavaScript and CSS components, as well as a Content Delivery Network that improves the internet’s performance on mobile devices. The speed at which web material loads is determined by the internet’s speed and the size of the website’s files. However, if the internet speed is rapid and the number of files is huge, numerous pages will load progressively.
Having said that, a technically optimised page might also load slowly if the connection is too slow.
How does Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) work?
AMP mainly comprises three parts that work together to make it work. The first is AMP HTML, which is basically a stripped-down version of standard HTML. Certain HTML features, such as forms, are not permitted on AMP to ensure faster page loading. You must also use a reduced version of CSS to leverage the AMP framework.
The second component is AMP JS, which limits the use of Javascript to make the website load faster on mobile platforms. The only exception is AMP Script, which has been optimised with page loading speed in mind. The aspects that JavaScript removes are compensated for with an extensive collection of simple-to-deploy components. AMP’s library allows users to create animations, dynamically load material, change the page layout, and do other tasks.
The proxy-based content delivery network (CDN), also known as AMP Cache, is the final component of AMP. The CDN gathers AMP material in order to cache it for faster delivery. The AMP CDN caches all eligible AMP material by default and does not provide an opt-out option. After learning about AMP, sites can use the “rel=amphtml” element in their HTML code to deliver AMP pages. A three-step AMP configuration is required for web pages containing the AMP code.
How can I set-up an Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP)?
Once you are up to date on what AMP is and it works, it’s time to understand how you can set it up! Here’s how you can do it:
- Do not skip on making a second copy of each page. This will ensure that a non-AMP version of each page is available and in case you are unhappy with the UI of the page after installing the plugin, you can use this copy to return it to its original state.
- Ensure that you already have a mobile-friendly version of your site. After that, you can create AMP iterations for the same pages.
- You won’t be able to utilise third-party JavaScript, create an email list, or use interactive components like comments on the page. AMP, on the other hand, supports HTML and is optimised solely for faster loading.
- To enable AMPs on your WordPress-powered website, you’ll need a GitHub plugin.
- To speed up the download, make sure to use a zipped version of the file.
- After you’ve completed downloading the AMP plugin, go to your WordPress dashboard and install it.
- To create an AMP site, add ‘/amp/’ to the end of each page. Use ‘?amp=1′ if you don’t have a permalink for the page.
- Google Search Console should be calibrated. This ensures that when a user loads your page, the search engine picks your AMP version. If you don’t do this, Google may still send traffic to previous versions of your site.
Benefits of Accelerated Mobile Page
Some of the benefits of AMP are listed below:
- Since these pages appear in the Google News Carousel, AMP content receives an SEO boost. Further, on mobile search, this is given priority above the fold placement and as more businesses sign up to promote their content, AMP pages gain better traction. Therefore, you must be connected to the AMP network.
- It is no hidden fact that smartphones have surpassed the desktop and PC as the most popular devices. People use their cellphones to find a new restaurant, shop, and read the news. Websites must load rapidly for mobile consumers, preferably within three seconds. The majority of mobile internet users will bounce and abandon the page if it takes too long to load.
- AMP assists you in generating revenue. It also provides a compelling user experience by lowering loading time while providing the same precise material to the user. Websites that load in three seconds generate twice as much income as those that load in 19 seconds. A total win-win for you!
- AMP speeds up the loading of web pages – AMP isn’t a ranking criteria, but page loading speed is. You can get accelerated mobile pages and faster loading Web pages by adding the AMP configuration to your HTML.
- Flexibility – By removing distractions from mobile browser pages and having 6x lighter code, one may better monetize their pages.
- Easy to operate – AMP pages are easier to use since they have all of the personalisation and interactive components that a typical HTML5 page does. AMP pages have a lighter functionality and faster loading times due to the lack of heavy tools.
- High ROI – Conversion rate optimization services using AMP can help a website earn more money.
On top of it, since Google has started to its mobile-first index, AMP pages have become essential for SEO rankings!
Disadvantages of Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP)
Since every coin has two faces, along with multiple benefits, AMP pages have various drawbacks too. Some of them are mentioned below:
- Lack of visibility in Analytics
Your analytics and performance measurement tools will be significantly impacted by having an AMP website. While caching, AMPs do not make requests to servers, leaving a lot of data points for your online assets unknown. To measure the efficacy of CTA buttons, landing pages, and other on-page elements, your performance marketing and web development teams will have to go above and beyond.
- Increased development load
In case you choose to use AMP, your development and maintenance teams will effectively be working with two types of digital assets: those that use AMP and those that don’t. This is important because you cannot, and should not, convert all of your web assets to AMP format with a single click, and you may not always want the most basic version of your page.
- Lack of flexibility
The entire AMP philosophy is based on the assumption that users only want the most important information and want it to load quickly. There is nothing a user can do if they don’t like the AMP format of the web page. Such inconsistencies can result in a loss of brand equity and potential conversions.
- Not ideal for rich UX elements
AMP is not the greatest answer if you want to give a high-end user experience with real-time updated features like graphics, rich media, or maps. In other words, if your digital strategy is strongly reliant on the overall user experience, you should avoid AMP because it reduces the UX to its bare bones.
Canonical Page vs. native AMP
In order to avoid any duplicate content issues, it is important that each AMP must be linked to its conical non-AMP version. Further, the conical page must be linked back to the AMP page as well.
Sample code of AMP page:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.example.com/url/to/full/document.html”>
In the Conical Page:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.example.com/url/to/full/document.html”>
NOTE: The canonical should be the AMP page itself if the page is native-AMP, which means that there isn’t another page for desktop devices.
AMP hinders SEO?
Only if people are aware of the AMP lightning emblem can AMP increase click through rates from the SERPs. Quite frankly, it would be unreasonable to expect searchers to be aware of the benefits and methods for locating the AMP page in search results if they are not informed.
AMP pages are tough to track because they aren’t automatically tracked by systems like Google Analytics. In Google Analytics, you’ll need to set up AMP sites next to your primary domain. Failure to track performance is one of the stumbling blocks to a successful SEO campaign. You can, however, use Google Analytics to track your AMP sites. In fact, publishers that are unfamiliar with the process may even see a decrease in traffic after using AMP.
NOTE: According to recent news on amp-bind components, website functionality may be moved too. This is due to the page’s ability to render more constrained JavaScript documents.
How to optimize for Accelerated Mobile Pages?
- Discoverability
One of the best ways to optimize your page for AMP is to Include information about AMP pages on non-AMP pages and vice versa to ensure your page is more discoverable. This is accomplished by using rel=”amphtml” on AMP pages and rel=”canonical” on non-AMP pages as link> tags in the head>.
- Compatible User Interface
Although due to AMP limitations you might encounter minor variations, the user interface and designs of the Webpage are mostly similar.
- SEO-friendly URLs
You can convey that the domain URL is an AMP by adding:
- Parameter “?amp”
- Subdomain “amp.domain.tld”
- Front-end language “domain/folder/article.amp.html”
- Subfolder “domain/folder/article/amp”
- Fully Operational
Another amazing way to optimize AMP is by integrating personalisation and interactive features to ensure that your AMP page is fully functional. The navigation menu, linked content, social media sharing icons, forms, login, and adverts are all functionally identical to the canonical version.
- AMP friendly Logo
It is important that the logo must adhere to the AMP guidelines in order to ensure that the site logo appears in the top stories carousel in high quality.
Conclusion
AMP has various advantages, but the real question is “can your website benefit fully from it?”. Well, a cost-benefit analysis is what AMP is. Since AMP tends to improve the speed of your webpages, the time and resources invested optimising the speed are better. Google AMP Pages can improve the performance of websites in a variety of industries. The use of AMP pages improves site traffic, conversion rates, and overall sales.