Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, is a new Google-backed open-source initiative. It is built to make web pages load faster on mobile devices. Google, on February 24, 2016, integrated its mobile search results with AMP listings. It is a toned-down form of HTML.

Accelerate Mobile Pages, or AMP, is a unique framework to create mobile web pages. The three parts of this structure are:

• AMP JS – This is a JavaScript framework, managing asynchronous loading and handling of the resource. You can use a third-party JS with it.
• AMP HTML – It is an HTML subset consisting of few custom properties and tags. However, there are many restrictions, but it is easy to adapt pages to this framework.
• AMP CDN – AMP CDN (Content Delivery Network) is an optional framework. It derives pages that are enabled by AMP and optimize the performance of the pages. It caches them.

Why is AMP crucial for small business SEO and mobile?

If your small business website is mobile-friendly, then you should definitely consider Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP.

5 Benefits of AMP

1 – Speed

60% of user time is spent on consuming information via mobile devices. 80% of buying decisions are made and action taken through smartphones and tablets. And speed defines these numbers. User attention span is only 5 seconds and if your website takes more than 5 seconds, to load on mobile devices, then you will lose your users. AMP loads 85% faster than other web pages. Using AMP JavaScript and AMP HTML, you can deliver content much more quickly than before.

2 – Experience

96% of digital engagement is sourced from mobile devices. AMP offers the best user experience that a mobile device user needs. Accelerated Mobile Pages come in a cleaner format than regular webpages. As per UX design trends, websites with flat and modern designs work better than websites with traditional designs. AMP echos the UX website design to mobile users.

3 – Accessibility

Accelerated Mobile Pages provide a higher level of accessibility. As mentioned earlier, the average attention span of online mobile device users is less than 5 seconds; it is crucial to inform, engage and update them within that duration. Mobile device users access the internet to engage on social media, get information about brands, products, services and make online purchases. AMP will help in enhancing web page accessibility, by increasing webpage loading speed, and delivering content in much better quality, thereby, boosting user-experience.

4 – Additional Visibility in Google Search Results

AMP pages are accompanied by enhanced Google SERPs on mobile devices. But, some SEO experts argue that this idea of AMP pages being highlighted with the lightning bolt in Google SERPs, helps increase the CTR of pages. Why? Because AMP results in a fast loading page. 

This is why this may result in a marginal increase in selected industries. 

Also, AMP in combination with valid structured data increase the likelihood of an appearance with a host carousel or rich results such as headline text and larger-than-thumbnail images.

5 – Swipe to Visit

There is an exclusive Swipe to Visit functionality for AMP rich pages in Google images on mobile.   When a user selects an image, they see a preview of the site in the header, and they can swipe up t visit the source page. The main addition of visibility is that AMP is a major requirement for the inclusion in the top carousel stories for all, with the only exception being COVID-19 related articles or content. 

But this will change in 2021 with the Core web vitals update. This update will allow both AMP and non-AMP pages to rank based on their on-page experience metrics.  

How can you assess the impact of AMP?

Whether you are embracing or abandoning AMP, you need to make sure that you measure the true impact it has before making a decision. So, how can you check the actual effect on user experience and site visibility?

You can use these 4 steps to assess the impact of AMP:

1. Confirming the AMP Code Validations on all Relevant Pages – Start spot-checking on a few pages with the AMP Test Tool. Google Search Console has a dedicated AMP status report that alerts you with your AMP URLs are eligible to be indexed or may not perform well in the SERPs. 
2. Verification of the Structured Data – For AMP content types, the Rich Results Test Tool is helpful for one-at-a-time spot checks.   
3. Understanding AMP Drivers of Visibility on Google – In the Google Search Console Performance reports, you can analyze a few dimensions: 
   • Search type – Web, Search appearance, or AMP non-rich results
   • Search type – Web, Search appearance, or AMP articles – It shows metrics for visually decorated search results such as carousels or images. 
   • Search type – Video, Search appearance – The report shows metrics for videos hosted on AMP pages within Google Video tabs 
   • Search type – News, Search appearance – Show metrics for AMP pages within Google News tabs in search results
   • Discover – This metrics shows for AMP Pages within Google Discover. Once you analyze the data, you can understand whether AMP is required or not for your website. 
4. Understanding the Drivers and Performances of AMP- Search Console only shows only the Google side, but you can get more insights from Google Analytics. Ensure that Google Analytics is set up correctly using client IDs to unify sessions across AMP and non-AMP versions. Also, double-check all your conversion integrations that are firing correctly on all AMP pages. 

According to Washington Post, returning mobile search users have increased by 23%. Wired reports a 25% rise in Click-Through Rates on Ads from Accelerated Mobile Pages. And Gizmodo reports a 50% hike in new traffic via AMP.