Accelerated mobile pages are a new way of designing all kinds of sites d use less data for mobile users. They use a cut-down set of HTML tags and apply strict standards for HTML use in general. The brains behind AMPs work at Google and Twitter, who wanted an open-source approach to making mobile more accessible. In this post, we will discuss what exactly AMPs do and why you need to start making use of them in your site design. It is increasingly hard to ignore accelerated mobile pages as the importance of mobile rises, so now is the time to master the concept to deploy it yourself.
The first thing to know is the context. By now, more than half of all global internet traffic originates from some kind of mobile device. It is true that part of this trend comes from developing countries that have leapfrogged personal computers for smartphones, but the underlying result is the same: more mobile over time. It is high time to start building and using custom solutions to serve the unique needs of mobile users. One of the most important of those needs is data, both in terms of usage and speeds.
We have already seen a major example of this idea playing out on Google already. The rise of the mobile responsive standard was a way for Google to start forcing companies to make websites that worked well for mobile users. This was less about data specifically and more about overall design. The standard had elements like automatic resizing and clear font choices to make sure that a website could still look good and behave correctly on a small touchscreen. Google punished sites that did not adapt the standard by placing them below sites that did on SERPs for mobile searchers. That had a big impact because there are fewer results per page on mobile, so the potential dropoff in traffic is large.
Accelerated mobile pages are similar in concept to the mobile responsive standard. An AMP is its own page that meets certain requirements, just like a mobile responsive page. However, Google is being less draconian with AMPs. Instead of pages that do not follow the AMP guideline being pushed down, AMPS will get a boost instead. This is positive reinforcement and will hopefully convince more companies to jump on board.
As for how to create an accelerated mobile page, there are a few different elements. The first is reduced use of HTML. Some tags are not allowed at all and others must be used in a certain order. In addition, much of Javascript is also out; there is a custom library of permissible JS to cut down on anything that might slow loading. AMPs also depend on pre-rendering and caching content. The goal of AMPs is to come as close as possible to instant loads for mobile platforms. That does mean some slight compromises on the toolkit available to you, but these are tools that tend to slow down sites anyway.
The long-term implications of AMP usage are large. Over time, Google plans to emphasize them more and more, giving greater rewards to AMPs for mobile search. Right now, they appear in a bunch at the top of search engine results pages. That is a powerful position on its own because it can be the entire first page for mobile screens, or a good chunk of it. Anything that reduces friction leads to more traffic. In this case, the friction is the effort of scrolling and tapping to the second page of results. In the future AMP result entries will get a special icon with a lightning bolt to set them apart. It will take some time before people start to learn what that means, but once they do it will become a significant advantage because it will be a key sign of an easy to use and quick-loading site.
The future of AMPs is less clear than the mobile responsiveness change. For one thing, mobile responsiveness was less invasive. It was comparatively easy for webmasters to meet the standard if they had put some effort into their mobile site already, and for those who had not, it was the push they needed. In other words, it was not surprising that a big percentage of mobile sites can meet the standard; the standard is not a high bar and it is easy to see if you have cleared it. AMP design is different. Its restrictions on JavaScript and HTML alone can force you to rebuild your site entirely, and the cache and hosting changes can also make a big difference. The payoff is probably at least as good as it was for responsiveness, but converting to an AMP is a bigger leap. That makes it unclear how many sites will be willing to adjust.
Whether you make a move now to take a step towards AMP design is up to you, but the rewards are going to increase over time while the costs of not switching will become more burdensome. Not building AMPs means losing more and more potential traffic and annoying the visitors who do arrive with a slower page that chews up more of their data. Yes, it is challenging to remake a mobile site, but this is a good blueprint for an optimized mobile site anyway. The importance of having AMPs will grow as more people use mobile and as Google emphasizes its effect on SEO more and more. Don’t be surprised if Google steps up the enforcement to push AMPs even more in coming months. Converting now means you can avoid all of that and start reeling in the benefits as soon as possible.