How to Make Your Site Faster With Google AMP

How to Make Your Site Faster With Google AMP

Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open-source project intended to make mobile website experiences faster and more reliable. AMP pages load lightning fast and are built on the same principles Google uses to operate its own search crawler. By using AMP, your mobile website will be able to compete with other mobile websites that use it. In fact, you’ll be at a major advantage over those that don’t use it.?

?According to an article on Search Engine Journal from October of last year, “Google has also revealed that AMP pages will get priority over non-AMP pages in mobile search results for users who have enabled accelerated mobile page loading under their Google settings." As a result, if your site isn’t using AMP by the end of this year, you risk becoming less visible in Google searches.

What is Google AMP?

AMP stands for “Accelerated Mobile Pages” and is a technology designed to speed up the mobile web. Mobile websites are often slower than desktop sites because they have to send data to devices over less robust internet networks and because they’re built on different code that works in different way.

?AMP attempts to fix this issue by creating a standard codebase for mobile websites that works similarly to the way that Google crawls the desktop web. Because AMP pages are served from a single URL and are hosted on Google’s servers, there’s no “loading” indicator like there is on other mobile websites. Instead, the page loads as soon as you click on it.

Why Is Google AMP Important?

• The best experience for mobile users: Google has found that AMP pages load consistently fast — often up to 10 times faster than non-AMP pages.?
• More people are using mobile: With more than 50% of internet users now accessing the web from a mobile device, it’s important to make mobile experiences as good as they can be.
• Improved search results: AMP pages can appear in a carousel above non-AMP results on mobile, giving you a leg up in the race for click.?
• Stronger brand identity: The consistent look and feel of AMP is designed to make your content look professional and well put together.

How to Make Your Site AMP-Ready

• You can make your site AMP-ready by installing the AMP plugin. Once installed, the plugin walks its user through a few steps to identify the parts of their code that will need rewriting in order to be AMP-compliant.?
• You can also do it with a tool like Squish. Squish is designed to make your code cleaner and more consistent. With a few clicks, it can find the problematic sections of your code, rewrite them to be cleaner and more efficient, and make your site AMP-ready.?
• AMP requires a lot of the same things that you’d do to make a site fast. First and foremost, load fewer resources. The fewer resources your site has to load, the faster it will be.

Install and run the Google AMP Validation Tool

Before you go through the process of AMPifying your site, you should run a validation tool to ensure that your code is ready to be rewritten. This will help you identify the changes you’ll need to make to your code in order to be AMP-compliant.?

• First, open the Google AMP validation tool.?
• Next, click on “Select a File” and choose an index page from your website.?
• Click “Analyze” and the validation tool will tell you what you need to change in order to make your site AMP-ready.?

Install the Google AMP runtime

• Next, you’ll need to install the Google AMP runtime. This is the part of the AMP system that actually runs your code.?
• You can install and use the AMP runtime on your computer or you can use one of Google’s hosting services.?

Add Google Analytics

• You may also want to add Google Analytics to your AMP pages. This is a great way to get more information about your readers and how they interact with your website.?
• You can put Analytics code in your AMP pages just as you would on a non-AMP page.

Add a sitemap

Your AMP pages will also need a sitemap in order to be discoverable by Google. - Make sure that your sitemap includes all the pages you want to be crawled and indexed by Google.

Add responsive design markup

If your site has a responsive design, you’ll need to add the responsive design markup to your AMP pages. This will indicate to Google that your site has a responsive design so it can accurately crawl and index your pages.

Add fast-loading CSS?

Make sure that your CSS loads as quickly as possible. - One way to do this is to avoid loading your CSS from within your pages. Instead, you can put it in a separate file and load it externally. This will make your pages load faster because your pages won’t have to wait for the CSS to load.

Add fast-loading JavaScript?

?You’ll also need to make sure that your JavaScript loads as quickly as possible. You can do this by separating your JavaScript code into separate files.

Conclusion

?The goal of Google AMP is to make your site as fast as possible. Your content should be easily accessible to readers on all devices, whether they’re using a desktop computer or a mobile phone.?

By making your site AMP-compliant, you’ll be able to compete with other AMP sites, and you may even see an increase in your organic search traffic. AMP is a powerful technology that is quickly growing in adoption. If you haven't implemented it on your site yet, don't miss out on the opportunity.