Google Amp Basics - Will it really speed up your website?

May 16, 2016

Recently Google launched the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project that gives publishers a framework to create web pages that load faster on mobile. By using Google AMP, you can improve your page load times and give users a better user experience on your website. This blog looks into how Google AMP works and how it will affect your website.

What is Google AMP?

Google AMP stands for ‘Accelerated Mobile Pages’, an open-source framework that offers publishers and developers access to a number of website performance optimization features for mobile users. These optimizations do not need to be manually coded to your website, you simply need to plug in Google AMP and watch your site performance increase.

Google AMP has three parts:

AMP HTML:

This helps you use the AMP framework and removes a number of tags to help focus on performance.

AMP CSS:

This elements also removes several CSS properties to help improve site speed. Using AMP CSS means you will not be able to create animations or complex transition.

AMP JS:

This piece relates to the Javascript framework that handles all the different resources. Once you put the link to the JS file in your site’s header you will be up and running. AMP JS will not work with any third party JS frameworks.

Isn’t HTML 5 enough?

By this point, most companies are shifting towards a mobile-first mindset, armed with the knowledge that last year, mobile searches surpassed desktop, that mobile users consume more media on mobile than desktop and that users do not return to website with poor mobile performance. With another impending smaller scale mobilegeddon coming up in May, the time is now to begin to work with tool likes Google AMP. Here are some of the main ways Google AMP will make an impact:

Page Speed

Page speed is a top priority and is by far one of the most important ways to stay competitive in SEO. Google AMP is easy to implement and will help you on your way to improving your mobile website.

Organic Rank

It is predicted that websites that have added Google AMP to their system will see a boost in the SERPS in future. Currently websites using AMP are highlighted in the search results and show up in the Carousel at the top of the results.

Simplier Mobile Design

Due to the many restrictions placed on mobile by Google AMP, it is likely that mobile design will become quite basic. Amogst some of the tags restricted from AMP are <iframe>, <embed>, <form> and so on. AMP also does not allow you to use and third party JS frameworks making things somewhat limited. Publishers will be forced to focus on usability and speed over design.

Google AMP is still very new, launching just 6 months ago however it is set to take the mobile user-experience world by storm. Google has expressed its favour for mobile websites for a while now and this is something that will only continue. It goes without saying that moving into a mobile-first experience is a high priority for all companies and websites.

Are you interested in using Google AMP? Tell us your thoughts over on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Written by
Alexander Rauser
Alexander Rauser

CEO

Alexander Rauser is the author of Boardroom Guide to Digital Accountability and Digital Strategy: A Guide to Digital Business Transformation, and creator of the DSX Program, a digital strategy and transformation program for Enterprises.

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