Let’s cut to the chase: Nobody has time for slow loading web pages.
Heck, according toUnbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Report, nearly 70 percent of consumers said that page speed impacts their willingness to buy from an online store.
Eek.
And when mobile now accounts for approximately一半在世界范围内的网络流量, mobile-optimized web pages no longer make the cut.
No one wantsfastanymore– they wantinstant.
But how in the world can you make your web pages load instantly?Enter Google AMP.
OK, but what is Google AMP exactly, how does it work, and how can it help yougrow your business? This guide will explain it all.
What’s more, Google AMP is probably more prevalent than you realize.
Tons of global brands have adopted Google AMP to better serve theirtarget audiencesand customers, including giants like Facebook,Baidu, Pinterest,Twitter, BBC News, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
In fact, there are now more than31 million domainsthat have created more than 5 billion AMP.
If you browsed Google on a mobile device in the last year, you almost certainly viewed Google AMP.
Let’s look at how to identify accelerated mobile pages.
Conduct a search on Googleon your mobile device, and you’ll see accelerated mobile pages displaying the lightning bolt icon scattered throughout the搜索引擎结果页面.
OK, so what exactly can you use Google AMP for?
The 4 Types of Google AMP
You can use Google AMP to create four types of accelerated mobile pages:
Websites / Web Pages
Stories
Ads
Emails
Let’s take a closer look at each one.
1. Google AMP
谷歌AMPis也许是最简单的the four types of accelerated mobile pages.
Essentially, a Google AMP website is just an HTML copy of a website that is more streamlined and loads almost instantly on mobile devices.
Aside from the lightning icon on Google’s search engine results pages, it’s hard to tell the difference between a normal, mobile-optimized web page and a Google AMP website.
That said, Google allows you to switch between top AMP website news stories as they’re displayed in the search results.
So, whether it’s AMP, Facebook, Instagram, orSnapchat stories, it’s clear that this format is here to stay.
Greg Manifold, design director of The Washington Post,said,
“As a source for breaking news and information, AMP stories allows us to showcase our quality journalism when there are multiple elements we want to bring together. Combining reporting, photography, videos, and motion graphics, this gives readers a more visual entry point when they are searching for our coverage.
Remember, Google AMP is open-sourced. This means that anyone can create and integrate AMP stories into their websites. In other words, AMP stories can be shared and embedded throughout the web and aren’t confined to just one particularsocial media platform.
3. Google AMP Ads
Advertising is a vital component of nearly all online business models.
When it comes toadvertising, every competitive advantage matters – and speed of delivery is definitely a key variable.
If your ads don’t load quickly, they might as well be this poor sloth trying to cross the road:doomed.
The Google AMP example below illustrates what AMP ads can do for your business:
That’s pretty awesome.
Shaun Zacharia, president and co-founder of the programmatic technology company, Triplelift,said, “They load way faster. Users pick up on every small delay, and when the ads load fast, this has a very positive impact on their perception and advertiser performance.”
This near-instant loading speed minimizes disruption for users, helps to increase visibility, and as a result, can improve click-through rates.
Plus, AMP ads are easier to build, there are new creative formats available, and they’re supported by more than a boatload of ad networks and analytics platforms.
In short, everyone wins.
As a result, Google AMP is revolutionizing the way businesses create and deliver ads online.
Yet, compared to many newmarketing channels, email is dated and lacking in dynamic features.
The key issue: Email messages are static.
This means that if someone comes back to an email a week after you sent it, the content might be out of date and irrelevant.
It also means that standard emails can only work as signposts. Users must click through to a new tab in their browser to engage with the content.
Google AMP emails solve both of these problems.
AMP emails can contain dynamic content and components that users can interact with directlywithinthe email message.
Let’s look at this Google AMP example from Pinterest.Users can browse and interact with pins within the email itself without having to click through to another browser tab or open the app.
Consequently, Google AMP emails provide a richer, more streamlined experience for users. Plus, they also provide seemingly limitless opportunities to creatively engage with your audience.
What are the Benefits of Google AMP?
In one word:Speed.
But why is speed such a powerful advantage?
“Web pages don’t have loading bars,”saidAndy Crestodico, founder and CMO of web design firm Orbit Media. “So, when the page is slow, the visitor doesn’t know if the delay will be another 500 milliseconds or 15 seconds. Maybe it will never load. And the back button is right there.”
Because of this, faster loading times can increase engagement and lowerbounce rates.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that most marketer’s landing pages don’t hit acceptable speeds.
In fact,Unbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Reportrevealed that 85 percent of participants’ landing pages were slower than Google’s recommendation of 5 seconds or less when using a 3G connection.
This makes Google AMP a reliable way to gain a key competitive advantage.
Plus, thanks to its speed, Google AMP is also especially useful for delivering content to users with slow internet connections. This includes areas with poor mobile coverage or slow public Wi-Fi networks, such as those often found in airports and coffee shops.
How? Well, Google’s Top Stories Carousel on mobile devicesonlyuses AMP cache to display articles. Plus, AMP is required to rank No. 1 in Google’s mobile search results.
So, if you want to rank in this carousel, you better get with the program.
It doesn’t matter how great your products are if people never see them because they click off your web page before it even loads.
The same Unbounce report found that when ecommerce sites slow down, 45 percent of people are less likely to make a purchase, and 36.8 percent of people are less likely to return in the future.
Ouch.
“Page speed is one of the most overlooked and yet most important factors in customer attention, retention, and, ultimately, converting browsers to buyers,”said Krista Seiden, analytics advocate at Google. “Ensuring that you’re taking measures to increase page speed or reduce lag can be the difference between failure and success.”
This is why Google AMP can help youboost your sales.
Remember that Forrester Total Economic Impact study? Well, it found that ecommerce websites using AMP saw a 20 percent increase in sales conversions compared to ones not using it.
Google AMP’s speed is especially beneficial if you’re targeting a younger demographic.According to Google,Generation Z(today’s teens) prefer to use smartphones to make online purchases.
Let’s look at a specific example from Shopify-hosted storeMerchology.
This leading provider of corporate-branded apparel allows customers to add their ownlogosto apparel and gifts.
Ads that directed users to AMP pages saw a 4.8 percent decrease in bounce rate and a 39 percent lift in conversion rates.
Users also averaged 19.2 percent more page views per session – i.e., people browsedmore products.
Noah Jeffrey, senior marketing engineer atRange Digital Media, Merchology’s marketing agency, explained, “When we look at page load speeds, it’s really no surprise that the AMP pages outperformed our standard responsive pages on nearly every metric we analyzed.”
What Are the Downsides to Google AMP?
You know the deal, nothing’s everperfect, and there are a few downsides to using Google AMP.
First, there’s an ironic trade-off when it comes toSEO.
Earlier, we mentioned how you can’t rank No. 1 in Google’s search results on mobile devices without using Google AMP.
However, Google AMP pages are hosted on Google AMP Cache servers.
This means that any domain authority or backlinks you generate for your Google AMP pages won’t be transferred to your actual website, but will just go to … well,Google.
According to Google, there’s no real way to get around this issue right now.
But perhaps most of all, using Google AMP can mean sacrificing a lot of the elements on your web pages. Google AMP is all about speed and efficiency. As a result, creative elements are restricted.
Still, this could be seen as positive as it means delivering a more streamlined experience for users.
To put it simply, AMP can make tracking difficult, hurt your overall SEO efforts, and take away your power to control a visitor’s navigation through your website.
How Does Google AMP Work?
When it comes to user experience, mobile-optimized web pages are a base requirement in 2019.
However, mobile-optimized web pages still include many clunky desktop elements. And in reality, many of these web page elements are totally unnecessary when viewing the page on a mobile device.
This is where AMP shines.
It simply does away with many of those elements. Essentially, Google AMP reduces the need for additional CSS requests and puts restrictions on bulky elements, such as pictures and Javascript.
从本质上说,这些加速移动页面stripped-down copies of existing web pages that allow many elements to load simultaneously rather than in sequence.
In other words, they lose the padding, and the files are better organized.
To learn more about how Google AMP works, check out this quick video:
It’s worth mentioning that AMP loads the fastest when visited via Google search.
In this instance, Google will host the AMP page on its own servers. This means users won’t need to leave Google to access the content – which makes loading times faster.
It’s like Facebook’s Instant Articles, which allow users to access content without leaving Facebook’s mobile app.
But, unlike Facebook’s Instant Articles, Google AMP isn’t limited to one platform. It works with tons of search engines and social media platforms, such as Bing,Reddit, Twitter, Medium, Tumblr, andLinkedIn.
How to Get Started with Google AMP
To create AMP pages, you need to create another version of your website that adheres to Google AMP’s standards.
This way, your Google AMP website will have its own unique URL such as “site.com/page/amp” and will be compatible with most web browsers.
Google AMP is an open-source technology that allows you to create and serve content at near-instant speeds across the web.
Remember, AMP stands for “accelerated mobile pages.”
Currently, you can use Google AMP to create four types of content: web pages, stories, ads, and emails.
The technology works by cutting all unnecessary components, limiting the use of slow-loading components such as bulky images and javascript, and allowing different elements to load simultaneously instead of in sequence.
There are plenty of benefits that come from faster-loading content, such as a better user-experience, improved engagement, and lower bounce rates.
Using Google AMP on your news stories also qualifies you to rank in Google’s News Carousel on mobile devices.
“2019 will be the year of page speed for every business marketing online,”said Ryan Engley,VP of product marketing at Unbounce. “Companies that can deliver lightning-fast user experiences will see a first-mover advantage – better Quality Scores, higher ad rank, and more leads and sales.”
You might not need Google AMP right now, but one thing’s for certain: The internet is speeding up.
It would be wise to not get left behind.
What’s your take on Google AMP? Are you using it? Let us know in the comments below!
