Turning Up The Noise On Google’s AMP
When it comes to mobile content, there is one major problem that we have all experienced; the lack of speed . That’s where Google’s AMP comes in.
How many times have you clicked on a friends tweet or a news story only to lose patience and click away because the content just hasn’t loaded? Now imagine your potential customers; how many seconds are they likely to wait before they lose interest and click away?
What is AMP?
Put simply, AMP is operated by adding code to your content, allowing for websites to work fast on mobile devices. This then serves searches on mobiles and tablets with a simplified version of your site.
From a user perspective one of the great benefits is that highly ranked AMP websites will display in the results as a carousel directly at the top of the search screen without the need to be clicked on.
Google have revealed they’ll now be using mobile performance as a bigger indicator in their search rankings. In a nutshell, this means they’ll actually prefer websites that have AMP versions of their pages, and crucially - they’ll be ranking sites with AMP higher as a result.
From April 2017, eCommerce websites will also be ranked using the same criteria too. Already way ahead of the curve are the likes of Ebay and Shopify, so if your own selling pages aren’t AMP-friendly, it could reduce organic conversion rates and potentially create a dent in profits.
How can AMP help my business?
Lack of speed doesn’t just affect user experience, it also reduces conversion rates, and harms accessibility by excluding users with slower internet connections. AMP ensures that mobile-optimised content can be created and published just once and will load up instantly everywhere.
By enabling your blogs, articles and product pages to be accessible from any device at any time, you’re ensuring the door to your business is always open. AMP ensures that you stay one step ahead of competitors and that your products can be seen in a matter of moments and to top if off, it also enhances your chances of reaching the very top of Google’s search rankings too.
What are the next steps?
Although AMP has been on the radar for some time now, the short and narrow of it is that Google rarely make an announcement unless they’re absolutely serious about something. So it goes without saying that AMP is guaranteed to be a great return on your investment.
Advantages include:
- Mobile pages that load up to 4x faster
- Pages that are cached by Google - which means load times are reduced even further
- Pages that are still able to serve forms and images that point toward CTAs
- Pages that are likely to rank higher in Google search listings
Lancashire digital agency Bespoke | Web Specialists can help you find out more about AMP and how to help you implement it across your site.