Google is constantly evolving and making changes to better serve their search engine users. They released AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) early this year in February, but have been making some changes to further improve the experience on mobile devices. Google announced that they will be “expanding their AMP support across the entire search results page – not just the “Top stories” section.” Let’s talk about what AMP is and what this means for search results.

What is AMP?

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages and it does just that – speeds up the time it takes for a page to load on a mobile device. An AMP is indicated by a small lightning bolt in a grey circle next to the webpage’s link, to signify that it will load faster. Who would’ve thought that with all of our technological advances that we would need things to load even faster than they are now? Technological expedience may start to become an even more important part of enhancing search results for Google users.

Fun fact: the AMP lightning bolt also shows up on articles you come across on Facebook. They’re located in the upper right hand corner of the article’s image. Social media users now spend about 80% of their social media time on their mobile device according to Marketing Land. Chances are, they are using their phone for their Google searches in addition to social media. It’s probably worth converting your website to an AMP page if social media users spend that much time on their phone.

If you want to experience it for yourself, Google recommends going to this link on your mobile device: g.co/ampdemo. They suggest typing something like “French toast recipe” into the search box. You’ll find that the first link displays “AMP” and the lightning bolt symbol. Click on the link and be amazed at the time it takes for you to open the webpage – we know we were.

So what is an Accelerated Mobile Page? It’s still a webpage, but it’s less clunky than a website’s desktop version, which causes it to load faster. What is it that causes websites to load much slower? Elements such as cookies and JavaScript will do it, and advertisements on slow-loading networks can hinder the webpage’s load time. The AMP gets rid of these elements and gets you to the page you are looking for much quicker. This type of page is beneficial when you have a weak network connection and your Internet is taking a long time to bring you to the page you’re trying to navigate to.

Will it boost or affect my search rankings?

AMP pages are not going to affect your search rankings or give you any kind of boost – the content on your website as well as SEO will do that. Google does boost rankings for mobile-responsive sites, but because AMP pages are already mobile-responsive they’ll be treated the same as those. Once AMP pages start becoming more popular, your search rankings could be affected due to searchers not wanting to click on your page because of its loading speed. The more AMP pages there are in the search results, the less likely they’ll click on a page that doesn’t have that little lightning bolt next to it. Who wants to wait for a page to load when 9 other pages can load twice as fast and deliver similar results?

What happens to my mobile site?

Not much is going to change for your mobile site, especially because you won’t be penalized for not having an AMP page. Keep in mind that AMP works on Google search engines; no others have announced that they will implement it. You’ll still need to keep a mobile-responsive website for this purpose.

It’s also worth thinking about how searchers are going to see your website. AMP pages are much less complex than regular websites and even their mobile versions. It’s important to consider what your website will look like to users and if it could cost you sales.

If you already have a desktop and mobile-responsive website, but want to have an AMP display page as well, then the AMP page will replace the other site that normally shows up in Google’s search results.

Do I have time to implement AMP?

Accelerated Mobile Pages are still fairly new, and there are still changes being made to perfect them. With any kind of advance in technology, it’s important to stay ahead of the game and make sure your business can keep up and compete. Do you have time to implement it? It’s never too early to get ahead of your competition – we recommend doing it now. Waiting could end up affecting you in the long-run, especially because Google is constantly creating new updates and working to enhance user experience.

Does my host offer AMP? What about analytics?

If you are using a popular content management system (CMS) such as WordPress, there is a plugin available to convert your website into an AMP page. This plugin makes it easy to convert your webpage; there is no excuse as to why you shouldn’t have an AMP page. If you’re skeptical about what it will do to your website, you can try it on one or two of your pages within your site first. Take smaller steps to see if you’re satisfied with the changes and to ensure there are no major errors that you’ll have to dedicate time on fixing. You don’t want your site to be a disorganized mess of mistakes and have to send business away until it’s fixed.

Lucky for Google Analytics users, information regarding your AMP page(s) is easily available to you. You’re able to sift through clicks, keywords, and many more details regarding your AMP page.

Google AMP is a beneficial tool for websites that may start to become increasingly popular. We live in a world dominated by technology that is always looking for a faster, better way to accomplish tasks. As Google is consistently keeping up with those demands, businesses will have to do the same to be able to compete and deliver at least the same, if not better, results. AMP pages are something to be excited about – they’ll make for happier customers and get rid of those unnecessary elements that took long to load on mobile devices.

Get in touch with us to discover how you can engineer authority online with your business through our marketing services. We’re ready to help you build your brand and expand your influence to increase sales.