(Article pulled from original source.)
If you know anything about web page optimization or SEO, you’ve likely heard about the recent buzz surrounding Google’s pet project, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). Whether you have a personal website or help manage your company’s website, Google AMP is something you need to know about. But before we jump into the details of Google’s latest venture, let’s establish a couple of important facts about the online landscape as it exists today.
According to KissMetrics and YOTTAA:
- 47% of desktop users expect a web page to load in two seconds or less.
- 40% of web users abandon a site that takes four or more seconds to load.
- Last year, the average size of a web page was approximately 1MB.
- The average size of a web page grew more than 15% each year from 2005 to 2016.
So, what does this all mean? With the rise of responsive design and the increasing presence of high-quality web imagery, websites are getting much, much heavier, but the average user’s patience in waiting for these rich websites to load is getting much, much smaller.
Thus, Google AMP.
WHAT IS GOOGLE AMP?
Google AMP is an open source initiative created in collaboration with dozens of publishers, technology companies and content creators across the globe to create a faster-loading mobile online ecosystem. A web page that is Google-AMP compliant uses AMP HTML and will load nearly instantly on mobile devices – making the mobile web browsing experience better for companies, publishers, and advertisers alike.
While Google AMP is clearly focusing its initial efforts on content publishers (news publications, social media platforms, bloggers) all webmasters can and should be talking about if AMP code integration makes sense for their website. Additionally, integrating Google AMP isn’t just a consideration at the initial stages of a website’s development; there is code available for content management systems (CMS), such as WordPress or Sitefinity, to integrate into their existing websites today.
According to amproject.org, sites that have integrated AMP HTML have already proven to load an average of four times faster while using 10 times less data than equivalent non-AMP pages.
And if user experience wasn’t a big enough motivator to consider AMP integration, Google has sweetened the pot by announcing that AMP-compliant pages will be designated as such in Google mobile search results and given SEO preference. In fact, if you search for the word “Facebook” via Google on your mobile device, you will see that a number of AMP-compliant pages about Facebook are getting top ranking in your search results.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Regardless of whether AMP integration is a priority for you or your company’s website right now, the key takeaway is that a conversation about page load time is now mainstream. If you want someone to take a particular action on your website, you need to consider how page load time plays into their user experience. If your site doesn’t load fast, not only will people look elsewhere, but Google has now made it a greater priority to have that play into your mobile search result rankings. Therefore, whether you are a developer, a marketer or a business owner, it is time to start talking about Google AMP.