Google AMP: What Bloggers Need to Know

Have you heard of Google AMP?

Want to know how it will impact your blog?

To discover more about Google AMP and the future of blogging, I interview Leslie Samuel.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode I interview Leslie Samuel, who runs BecomeABlogger.com, where he teaches people how to blog with purpose. He's also host of the Learning With Leslie podcast and head of training for Social Media Examiner's Social Media Marketing Society.

Leslie will explore Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project and what it means for bloggers.

You'll discover how to install Google AMP and related plugins on your WordPress blog.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Google AMP
What is Google AMP

Google AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, and is a collaboration with a number of tech companies. Its goal is to improve the performance of websites on mobile devices, which in turn improves user experience.

Kissmetrics did a study, which found that 40% of mobile users leave a page if it doesn't load in three seconds. When that happens, these users don't see the publisher's ads, products, services, or events. AMP pages load 10 times faster and use 10 times less data.

Plus, when people view a website on a mobile device, pop ups (such as ads and opt-in boxes) take up the entire page. There's such a small amount of real estate on a smartphone, the pop-ups really inhibit the user experience.

Google has already started placing Google AMP pages above non-Google AMP pages to mobile users in search. If you do a search for any popular topic, like politics, on your smartphone, only sites that have accelerated mobile pages enabled will show up in the top stories section.

This is just the beginning. In the future AMP will be even more wide-spread.

Listen to the show to learn how the Facebook Instant Articles feature is similar to Google AMP.

Pros and cons of AMP

In addition to the benefit of preferential treatment in search, AMP's faster load times should decrease website abandonment and increase content consumption.

Before discussing the cons, Leslie noted one thing in terms of how AMP is set up.

When someone clicks on an AMP enabled article on their mobile device, "/amp" is added to the URL, essentially creating a second link. (For example, a Social Media Examiner article with AMP would have the URL socialmediaexaminer.com/ARTICLE-TITLE/amp.) There are now two links: the original link from the desktop article and the second from mobile (with /amp at the end), which is what Google will show above the initial version.

The AMP project is able to speed up websites because it strips away a lot of the unique elements, such as style sheets and JavaScript, that make a website look and function in a specific way.

AMP sites have specific standard dimensions, and elements such as sidebars, headers and comments are gone. However, there is still a lot you can do with design, Leslie explains. For instance, you can change fonts and colors, add a logo, and more. It just will not be as extensive as what you have on your website.

Articles with AMP show a single column that holds both text and images, so people won't see anything you promote in the masthead and sidebar on your regular, desktop website. Leslie says while the AP version of some sites may not be as advanced as the desktop experience, they still look pretty nice. For example, The Washington Post has a simple top with their logo. Then, when you scroll down, you see other posts, social media links, and so on.