Boost Your Website SEO with Accelerated Mobile Pages

Posted by admin Aug 10, 2017

It has been more than a year since Google and Twitter jointly introduced the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). AMP is an open source coding standard that has been designed to make a website load quickly on the mobile devices. It is a stripped down form of HTML that is super lightweight. This is the reason behind the fast loading of mobile pages.

What Makes AMP So Important?

AMP may not be considered as a ranking factor yet but does has an impact on the impressions, clicks and the user experience. All these factors indirectly affect the SEO. All the pages that are yet not on the AMP bandwagon will definitely see a drop in clicks and user engagement.

The Accelerated Mobile Pages have a direct impact on the mobile friendliness of a website which is one of the major ranking factors of a site. A number of websites have lost their top positions as they did not take the mobile friendly design seriously. As Google tends to release more updates in future which are mobile centric, the importance of AMP is only going to increase.

AMP Framework

AMP has completely changed the central elements of how a website structures its mobile pages. Following are the three components that play a crucial role in delivering these Accelerated Mobile Pages.

AMP HTML

This a code markup that includes the specific HTML tags. This is required for identifying the elements like texts and images. It will seamlessly analyze the information to the mobile device.

AMP JavaScript

This is a new JavaScript structure for the mobile pages that will enable the loading of various external resources at different intervals.

AMP CDN (Content Delivery Network)

It will take the AMP-optimized content so that it can be cached for a faster delivery.

Mobile Browsing Experience: AMP vs Non- AMP

The AMP pages do not include a lot of stuff on them that are necessary for a much more intriguing user experience. This is because all the complex factors have been stripped down.

• AMP will force you to utilize a much more streamlined version of the CSS.
• AS JavaScript is not allowed on the pages, adding share buttons on the AMP pages is not possible.
• You will have to utilize the off the shelf JavaScript library that is provided by AMP. This is the reason behind the lazy loading of images on the pages.

Create AMP Pages For a WordPress Site

Integrating AMP into your WordPress site will only take around 5 minutes. All you need to do is follow the below-mentioned points.

Step 1: Firstly, you will have to install the AMP WordPress plugin by Automattic. You can head over to GitHub or download the zip file from the link.https://github.com/Automattic/amp-wp

Step 2: Go the WordPress website plugins, click on ‘Add New’ and then click on ‘Upload Plugin’.

Step 3: The zip file has to be uploaded for here.

Step 4: Now activate the plugin.

Step 5: In order to confirm whether the plugin is working or not you will have to search an article on the website by adding ‘/amp/’.

After Creating AMP Pages in WordPress

Once the pages have been created you will be able to see results in the Google Search Console. Next, you will have to validate the pages. Below are the steps that will enable you to go about the validation process.

• In Chrome, you will have to add “#development=1” at the end of the AMP blog post URL.
• Right click and then click on ‘Inspect’.
• Now refresh the page.
• Under console, you will be able to read that the AMP validation is successful.

SEO Benefits of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

There are numerous benefits that are associated with AMP. However, I am going to showcase the top SEO benefits of coding with AMP.

• Speed plays a pivotal role in displaying content on a mobile device. According to a study, if a website takes more than 3 seconds to load, a majority of the mobile users are going to shun the site and look for other better options. This is where Accelerated Mobile Pages play a crucial role. The AMP pages load significantly way too quicker than the normal web pages.
• The idea behind the creation of AMP was not to have an impact on the search engine rankings. However, the features of mobile-friendliness and fast page loading speeds do have an impact on the rankings on Google. It is inevitable that a website which has been developed with AMP is bound to get higher ranks in search results.
• The search results will consist of the AMP symbols that will increase the visibility of the pages. This will have a positive impact on the click through rates. Users are also going to look out for the AMP pages due to their faster loading times.
• A wide range of technologies and ad network formats are supported by AMP. This is done for delivering faster ads along with retaining the quality of the content. This will draw the attention of the viewer and make the content look good. Being open source there are numerous advertising technology providers that have integrated with Accelerated Mobile Pages.
• Keeping a track over visitor behavior is one of the most important aspects of Internet Marketing. With AMP, the publishers can automatically keep a track over the visitor data that includes clicks, conversions, visitor counts, line tracking and much more. Most of the businesses have already adopted AMP actively which has enabled them to keep a track over their business.

Need help in Setting up AMP for your Website? Contact us

In The End

The main objective of this post is to provide an in-depth explanation about AMP. Over here we discussed the importance of AMP in mobile browsing and how it impacts the user experience. We even discussed the steps of creating AMP pages for a WordPress website. Lastly, we saw the SEO benefits that are associated with AMP pages.

I hope the article provides all the much-needed information that you are looking for regarding AMP. Please let me know your views about the article in the comments section below.