Explaining Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages

The biggest digital trends of 2016 have everything to do with mobile. More and more users are moving away from desktop searches and using their phones to get information. Think about it, when you’re at a restaurant and look around to see how people are interacting, a majority of them are on their phones. Next time you’re stopped at a red light look to see what passengers are doing in the car, almost all are on their phones, sadly most of the drivers are too.

With the amount of data Google gathers they can easily see more users are moving towards mobile searches. They have adopted to this change by creating Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). AMP makes viewing news articles easy and most importantly fast. Google emphasizes load time when it comes to pages, just do a site speed test on your site to see where you rank. The site speed factors into ranking metrics, and Google understands users want speed.

Why Google AMP is Faster

To increase site speed there’s a few changes to a site needs to be changed. The bulky, slow-loading factors need to be removed, such as limiting JavaScript. It doesn’t stop there, AMP HTML limits the amount of CSS being used and even implements caching. For example, having high-quality images within an article is a must anymore, but they can take awhile to load. With caching the images are ready to be viewed once the link is clicked. This cuts down on load time significantly.

In February Google launched the new AMP project with the help of a few selected websites. Sites like Huffington Post and The Washington Post began using AMP pages and both saw high success. These sites began seeing a decreased bounce rate which was a result of the faster load time. Not only does it save time for users, it saves time for developers. Typically an app would be developed to view news sources, but AMP has removed this need. Now users can jump from multiple sources all within one search engine.

As more and more users move towards mobile applications it’s vital for sites to keep up with the changes. Implementing AMP for your website can help give you an edge up on your competition. Many sites have taken their time moving over to AMP, even though Google has pushed for sites to implement it, like sending messages through Webmaster Tools. Don’t get left behind, if you want to rank within the search engines, then jump on the opportunities Google puts in front of you.