What Is Google AMP and How Does It Impact SEO?

If you’re a small business owner who handles your own search engine optimization, you’ve probably seen the acronym AMP before, which stands for accelerated mobile page. You might have a vague idea of what it means, but not about how it impacts your website or SEO efforts. Like Google+, AMP was lauded as The Next Big Thing for a while—until it wasn’t. Still, some websites continue to use AMP, and there are SEO advantages to consider. What is AMP? An accelerated mobile page is designed for browsing on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. AMP is a Google product stored and served by Google. Essentially, it’s a streamlined version of a webpage that is cached on Google's servers. AMP pages are built with bare-bones HTML and CSS to deliver faster load times. Accelerated mobile pages were launched at a time when it was more common for websites not to be optimized for mobile devices. This led to slow loading times, errors and websites that were essentially unusable, requiring pinching and expanding and scrolling before users would eventually give up and go to another website. AMP prioritizes user experience over all other factors. SEO advantages of AMP While AMP has its share of critics, there are some advantages to using it. These include: Faster load times. We know that load time is an important factor for core web vitals, so if your website is slow to load on mobile, AMP can improve this metric and potentially boost your search rankings. Better user experience. There are no tiny fonts and huge images, no error messages, no scrolling to the right because text doesn’t wrap. AMP offers the meat of a webpage without all of the extras. Lower bounce rates. A good user experience means visitors are less likely to bounce and go to a competitor’s website. Disadvantages of AMP While these SEO advantages might make using AMP sound like a no-brainer, there are also some downsides: It requires effort to implement. AMP isn’t a matter of toggling a box in Webmaster Tools and letting Google do the rest. You or your developer will need to build an AMP template, which requires an investment of time and money. Engagement may be lower. This is anecdotal, but some publishers and website owners that use AMP complain about getting less engagement on their content. Mobile site optimization may be better. As discussed above, AMP first came about when fewer websites were optimized for mobile. Now that it’s standard for WordPress themes to be responsive, AMP isn’t as needed. Google may drop AMP. AMP used to be required for Top Stories section placement in Google search results, but this is no longer the case. Some experts see this as a sign that AMP is being phased out. Is AMP right for your website? If you’re weighing the advantages and disadvantages of AMP, here’s the bottom line: AMP makes sense for publishers, particularly those who publish news stories. For small businesses that blog to market their services and products, AMP likely isn't needed. AMP is primarily about improving user experience through faster site speed. But we know that speed is only one of many factors Google considers in overall page experience. Consider AMP as one of many tools available to create a better user experience on your website. You can create a fast-loading, streamlined website for mobile devices without AMP, and since Google isn’t giving AMP preferential treatment anymore, there’s no reason to choose AMP over other methods. Guest Posting in 2021: What You Need to Know About Creating SEO-Friendly Writing