UPDATE May/2018: It’s time to Convert HTML to AMP | Convert Your Website To AMP

The Accelerated Mobile Pages platform more commonly known as AMP and was announced by Google on October 7, 2015 and is here to stay. Surprisingly to us at VGI SEO was one recent survey showing that a whopping 25% of SEO’s had no idea what accelerated mobile pages or Google AMP even was.

Let us take a closer look at what “Accelerated Mobile Pages” (AMP) really is…

First, please consider that the pace of change knows no bounds. It seems like it was only moments ago that our Chief of SEO, David S. Freid predicted optimizing pages for mobile devices would be at the forefront of SEO. In fact, it was 12/31/2012 and far ahead of Google’s official announcement, made on February 26, 2015 to provide websites found to be “mobile friendly” a boost in rankings in Google search. Skip to today and we can look back on how tablets and smartphones have revolutionized the way we search for information. Webmasters and publishers use the web to engage with their readers and clients, but slow loading pages, lead to reader frustration. If a page takes too long to load then consumers abandon the site.

Studies show that when using a mobile device to surf the web if a page has not loaded within 4 seconds, 25% will leave and abandon the page.

This is what prompted Google to introduce accelerated mobile pages, AMP. In November 2015, the search giant launched an open source initiative that they called Accelerated Mobile Pages, in order to improve the user experience for the growing number of mobile devices now accessing the internet and Google search. This allows pages with rich content (graphics, video, and animation) to load instantaneously. The same code can be used across multiple platforms and devices.

Why you may ask, have I written this brief introduction to Googles AMP? The answer is because I was surprised at the results of an article recently read on searchenginejournal.com. They surveyed 385 SEO professionals, in-house SEOs, SEO companies, agencies and outside SEO consultants from North America and Europe. Most of them, as you would hope, or expect, are aware of AMP. Surprisingly, 25% of those surveyed had never even heard of it and only 18% said that they had looked into it deeply, yet 50% expect AMP to have a significant effect on search results.

The study also shows that only 23% of those surveyed have begun to write AMP coding into their mobile sites; 29% think that they will begin in the next six months and a worrying 5% say that they have no plans to implement it. Please consider that as a company, Verti Group International a.k.a. SEO Seattle® had both the understanding and knowledge to manually code AMP pages allowing us to provide some level of AMP readiness for 100% of our SEO/Digital Marketing clients before the end of 2015.

The study finishes by saying that early adopters will see a distinct advantage, and the statistics show that AMP has created an opportunity for companies that employ agile marketers.

Conclusion: We will share our vision and the importance of AMP when asking you to consider that Verti Group International a.k.a. SEO Seattle® currently have most all of our client’s websites with some degree of AMP enabled pages and many as early as December 2015. Most all of our own clients’ websites are already optimized for AMP and future clients can rely on the forward-thinking approach that we have employed since 2009. 

AMP Updates:

Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Premium Conversion Service

AMP is still on the rise – did you explore making your site AMP ready? – July 24, 2017

Google AMP Update: Aug 24, 2017