Why It’s Time to Implement Google AMP on Your Site

New technologies emerge. You’ll often hear about the next big thing, the latest technology that will change how we do things; suddenly, they fade away. 

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is not one of such technologies, as it has proven to be useful and beneficial for many websites.

Many people know AMP to speed up their websites, but it does more, it also offers search engine benefits, giving your site an edge over the competition.

Google is known to provide fantastic solutions to persistent problems, and after years of developers coming up with different ways to speed up load times for mobile devices, the team at Google found an alternative method which is Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).

In simple terms, AMP is a lightweight version of HTML, JavaScript, and caching modules that store site data so as to improve load-time speeds when a mobile user opens your site. 

Since Google is are pioneers of AMPs, implementing the technology on your website can significantly improve your site’s ranking on the search engine.

When making changes to your site’s architecture, you need to understand the reason for making such changes and accept the pros and cons of such changes.

If you’ve ever wondered if AMP is worth the site changes, here are some reasons why you should budget time to integrate AMP:

• Faster Connection for Mobile Devices
• Improved Google Search Rankings
• Improved Conversion Rates

Faster Connection for Mobile Devices

It’s no news that the majority of visitors to your website are using mobile devices; therefore, it is a move in the right direction to find ways to speed up the load time of your web pages, especially for mobile devices.

Desktop users will most likely have fast internet connections, so it is reasonable to pay more attention to providing an enjoyable experience for users of mobile devices.

In summary, by stripping much of the cumbersome code, sites with AMP can load faster on mobile devices.

Improved Google Search Rankings

AMP is specific to Google, so it only works well with Google’s search engine. It speeds up your website’s page load time, which in turn improves user engagement. 

Sites such as The Washington Post have reported better viewer traffic and an increase in search engine rankings; without doubt, you’ll experience the same when you go ahead to implement AMP on your website.

When you perform a search on the Google search engine, the first set of results you see are of sites that have implemented AMP. When you use AMP on your site, it stands a chance of showing up on this list of first results ahead of the competition, and this improves your chances of engaging users to click your site’s link and view your content. 

The Google search engine only shows websites with AMP on the carousel of web pages, so you have an advantage over competition that doesn’t have an AMP implementation.

Improved Conversion Rates

Your site will only convert users when it impresses them. While some argue that AMP can’t increase conversation rates as the bounce rate shown by Google Analytics increases, they fail to understand that the calculations are wrong.

Most site owners do not understand the bounce-rate metric on Google Analytics. Traditional bounce rates were metrics that identified users that went to another site after reading just one page of your website; therefore, when you measure bounce rate using Google Analytics, it’s measured slightly differently. 

Bounce rate is determined when a user leaves your site without taking any extra steps that trigger a Google Analytics event. So your user can click an ad or sign up for a newsletter, and that would trigger a Google Analytics event.

AMP, in reality, lowers the site’s bounce rate, instead of increasing it as Google Analytics will tell you. With lower bounce rates and better search engine placement, you will eventually see an increase in ROI and revenue. 

The increase in revenue is the ultimate benefit when you implement AMP. You get more traffic, increase your ROI, improve your conversion rates, and generate better revenue for your business.

Pitfalls You Need to Understand

With any technical change to your site, you run the risk of falling victim to some pitfalls. These pitfalls are minor in comparison to the benefits, but it is vital that you understand them.

The first pitfall is the loss in functionality. When you cut out any HTML or JavaScript, you also remove functionality created by that code. You might lose functionality when you implement AMP, so you should test your site before launching an AMP version.

To work around this pitfall, you should have an alternative to the lost functionality even when it’s not an integral part of your site architecture. As long as it doesn’t disrupt your site architecture, it’s still beneficial to use AMP and the alternative features.

The second pitfall is the possible loss of ad revenue. If you rely heavily on ads, test your new AMP pages before you deploy them. AMP is best suited for websites that do not depend heavily on advertisements for revenue. Ads intrude on the user experience, so AMP cuts many of them out. 

Once again, test AMP before you deploy it so you can figure out the things that are not working fine and find a fix.

How Do You Get Started?

AMP is easy to set up for WordPress sites, all you need is to install a plugin, and you are good to go. If you have custom requirements, you may need to employ a WordPress developer to build something to meet your needs.

Also note that AMP must be implemented page-by-page, so you should determine which ones are popular to focus implementation on the most vital sections of your site.