Why Your Business’s Mobile Website Needs Google AMP

Businesses worldwide have poured billions into their websites annually ever since the internet first exploded onto the scene in the mid-90s.

With huge back-end databases, robust security systems, and dynamic front-end design, there is an infinite number of ways to grow and improve your website’s user experience.

But as mobile browsing numbers soar far beyond any of our predictions, brands have to make adjustments on the fly, creating mobile experiences that outperform the competition.

Although there are countless tweaks and tactics you can use to improve your mobile website, Google AMP is one tool that every single brand should consider.

Today, I’m exploring a few ways in which your brand can benefit in a big way from Google AMP, and some steps you can follow to make the most of this key technology.

Sleeker, Faster Mobile Pages

It doesn’t take a computer science Ph.D. to see that mobile devices are different from laptops and desktops. The screens are smaller, they have fewer inputs, and because they aren’t constantly connected to the Internet, downloads can be unpredictable.

On top of that, smartphones and tablets pack way less CPU power, memory, and graphics capabilities than bigger machines, meaning they’re at a performance disadvantage as well.

So when it comes to creating mobile browsing experiences, you have to account for all these factors, while maintaining the essence of your website’s functionality and brand message.

While companies have done a decent job of making their websites mobile-ready for the past few years, they’ve mostly just shrunk down the desktop version to palm-sized, with mixed results.

The pages don’t look terrible, they’re just a bit cluttered and non-intuitive. Plus, the load times and multimedia performance is generally lacking, leaving most users unimpressed.

That’s why Google AMP is such a fantastic leap forward in the mobile website arena, and why you need to plan for some degree of implementation sooner than later.

Stripped Down and Supercharged

I touched on the clunky mobile versions of traditional websites above, and we all recognize some of those frustrations when we browse on the go.

Some menus are too small, others are too big, sidebars don’t show up properly and the whole thing is so darn slow!

Sites developed with the Google AMP framework address each one of these problems, delivering a way sleeker faster mobile browsing experience for your users.

In essence, AMP strips away a huge percentage of the code used for desktop websites and sticks to a rigid data structure that promotes lightning-fast downloads.

That means a reduction in HTML5, a single, streamlined CSS, and virtually no JavaScript.

Less overall code translates to fewer server requests, reduced likelihood of delays and errors, and a page that loads quickly and evenly. No more waiting for half the page to appear — it all shows up at once thanks to the streamlined format.

Some developers may wonder what happens to canonical code after creating AMP pages.

Don’t worry, all that hard work isn’t in vain. AMP is just a new mobile-only version of your standard webpages that still exist in full on the regular web.

You’re basically making a tradeoff: sacrifice a bit of format and style for a ton of added speed and functionality. For more brands, it’s worth making that trade.

Superior User Experience

Remember, the experience of mobile web browsing is way different from desktop usage, so we need to apply a different set of criteria to websites accessed on phones and tablets.

With that said, UX is still the main indicator of a strong product or service, no matter what industry or application.

In fact, the stated goal of Google AMP is “a straightforward way to create webpages that are fast, smooth-loading, and prioritize the user experience above all else.”

Google recognized that mobile users have unique expectations, and created AMP to meet the demands of this segment, which still grows by the millions each year.

Improved load times, menu navigation, and smoother checkout processes are just a few of the ways that AMP makes the mobile experience better for smartphone and tablet users.

Faster is Better on Mobile

We’ve established that speed matters when browsing mobile websites, but how much of an impact does it make on your business’s bottom line?

As it turns out, just a one-second delay in page load time can lead to major drops in engagement and conversion rates.

Sitting a laptop or desktop, folks may actually be more tolerant of longer load times, but their patience runs thin when using the rapid-fire smartphone interface.

According to research from MachMetrics, bounce rate appears to be clearly correlated to the amount of time spent waiting for a page to load.

While a 3-second delay can increase chances of page abandonment by up to 32%, a 6-second delay reveals a bounce rate of over 100%!

That’s enough to drive any marketing director up a wall, and unfortunately, this is the fate of way too many websites — the average mobile page load time is well over ten seconds.

Whether it’s a lack of information or awareness, I can’t say. But I know that you have more power than you think when it comes to optimizing your mobile speeds.

As far as return on investment and effort, Google AMP is the most effective solution available, dramatically restructuring your pages for speed while maintaining key functionality.

Building Out Feature Sets

When the first version of AMP was released back in 2016, many digital marketers were not impressed with its capabilities.

The initial focus seemed to be on helping major media publishers pump out newsy, fast-food content to the top of the search results carousel and get easy clicks.

But since then, Google has been piling on the features to the point where traditional mobile web pages are on the verge of irrelevance. Here are a few noteworthy recent additions:

• Near-complete compatibility with Google Ads and Analytics.
• AMP enhancement for product pages, review sections, and checkout processes.
• Stronger multimedia support for assets like video, images, interactive surveys, and embedded posts from social media sites (Twitter, Pinterest, etc.)
• Increased levels of web security to ensure protected payments and user information.
• Integration with eCommerce platforms like Shopify to boost conversion rates.
• Improved metadata structuring for rich results on Google’s top SERP positions.

I’d be lying if I said every single one of these features was perfect, but the fact that Google is making constant tweaks to the formula is very encouraging for the future of AMP.

Better Search Engine Results

Marketers have been fixated on search engine ranking factors for years now, tirelessly tweaking their web pages to gain a few precious spots in the SERPs.

Organic search is still king and the growing SEO industry is evidence. Now, mobile search is the new wild west, and the brands that crack the code are in for huge rewards.

One factor we know makes a difference is mobile page speed, which Google has clearly been rewarding with high page ranks.

Although AMP isn’t an explicit rank factor (yet), those shorter page load times add up and benefit your brand in a big way.

Improved Visibility

Another obvious edge Google grants to AMP pages is the ability to be seen in rich results formats like the prime-time carousel and other featured snippets.

These items appear at the top of the SERP (even above paid ads) and give users the most definitive, trustworthy answers to their questions.

Combine AMP with structured data, and you have a high chance of getting that top spot in your niche, which means big traffic and conversion boost thereafter.

With the introduction of mobile-first indexing, Google is placing heavy emphasis on smartphones, tablets, and voice-recognition search factors.

Given these trends, I expect Google to push more mobile-centric rank criteria in the very near future, so be prepared.

Is Your Site Ready Now?

Even if you’ve just launched your website and have no idea where to begin with mobile optimization, AMP is a great jumping-off point.

Since you can pick and choose which pages you want to amplify, there’s no need to make an all-or-nothing decision. Remember, you can roll it back if need be.

Also, the framework is somewhat static, meaning it’s harder to mess up when you have exact standards to meet. This is comforting for marketers and developers that struggle with too many possible decisions in the design process.

I actually recommend to AMP newcomers to try out the waters with just a few content and product pages, see how users and search engines respond, then continue accordingly.

Possible Drawbacks

While AMP has become way more well-rounded in the past couple of years, it’s still lacking in some departments, mainly ads and analytics.

You may not be able to run your full range of ad campaigns on AMP pages, and the insights you expect from your analytics platform will not be so robust.

With that said, GitHub developers are making updates to the framework weekly, fleshing out the feature list, and giving you more tools to work with.

Outsource or In-House?

Even if you aren’t willing or able to make a site-wide AMP overhaul, I recommend you at least set forth a strategy to upgrade at least a few of your pages ASAP.

Definitely link up with a freelancer or agency that can help you navigate AMP implementation. Before long, it will be a necessity to survive in the mCommerce arena.