Google has released a new format for webpages that is designed to provide mobile optimized content. By loading special versions of your website pages, they can load instantly, anywhere.
The goal is speed.
Google wants the user experience on mobile to be improved in such a way that it blurs the line between an app and a website. This new initiative is aptly named Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
Why should you enable AMP on your site?
First, your site will load faster on mobile devices. Faster load times have proven to increase conversitions. Who doesn’t want to visit a site on their phone and see it load faster?
Next, browsing around on mobile will also be faster. If a site has an AMP version of the page, Google might display that version of the page in their search results. The search results on mobile will also include article previews of AMP enabled sites. This extra promotion could increase click-through rate.
Finally, the user experience will improve. The AMP version of the page removes all of the clutter and presents the content in a very easy to read format. Your users will not only be able to load the page quickly on their mobile device, but also be able to consume and interact with the content easier.
Adding AMP to WordPress
Google has released technical documentation for how to create AMP versions of your website, but thankfully there is an integration with WordPress that makes it simple and easy to add Accelerated Mobile Pages functionality to your WordPress posts.
Your regular website content will continue to exist, but now all posts will have dynamically generated AMP-compatible versions. AMP content will simply have “/amp/” appended to the end of the URL. The default AMP styling can also be altered to match your existing site’s branding, fonts and colors.
Do Accelerated Mobile Pages actually speed up your site?
I installed AMP on my personal blog and checked Google’s PageSpeed Insights before and after the installation. My pagespeed score before setting up AMP was 62/100 on mobile. Just by setting up AMP, and making no other changes, I was able to increase my mobile pagespeed score to 86/100. Not bad!
Are you interested in improving your site’s mobile user experience? Get in touch today to have us set up Accelerated Mobile Pages on your website.
P.S. I gave a short presentation at the Fort Collins WordPress meetup on the topic of Accelerated Mobile Pages. Check out the slides below.
