It wouldn’t be wrong to presume Google AMP will change the future of blogging. For starters, it stands for Google’s ‘Accelerated Mobile Pages’— working in collaboration with a several tech giants. This strategy by Google aims at improving website performances— precisely on the mobile platforms. It can then improve the wider range of blogging besides accentuating the user experience.
This brings us to a study conducted by Kissmetrics— offering insights into the bounce rates experienced by pages optimized for mobiles. 40 percent of users terminate the search if the concerned page doesn’t come up within three seconds. This way most users miss out on the products, services and even some of the yielding publisher ads. With AMP is place, beefed up pages do load 10 times quicker and also use lesser data.
Another hindering experience calling for the introduction of accelerated mobile pages include the frequency of pop-ups— showing up when a website is visited. Smartphones usually boast of a restricted screen size— making it hard for users to bear with advertisements and the opt-in tabs.
Finally, Google has taken an initiative towards improving the user experience by placing AMP empowered pages right above the traditional ones. For any given search on popular topics— accelerated mobile pages will readily show up in the section corresponding to top stories.
Up Close and Personal with AMP
The best part about AMP is the preferential treatment of webpages pertaining to searches. However, the faster loading time readily increases content consumption besides lowering down the instances of website abandonment.
Before we delve deeper into the set of loopholes, it would only be appropriate to know an important detail about setting up AMP:
Clicking on the AMP enabled post will readily add “/amp” to the URL. This in turn, will create a second link— shown above the original version, resembling the one for desktop search. This way AMP can speed up the searches but compromises on a lot of unique attributes. The style sheets are eliminated and JavaScript is also stripped off. This way AMP empowered websites work in a specific manner and look simpler than the original version.
If AMP websites are concerned, standard dimensions are persisted with. Conventional elements like headers, comments and sidebars are eliminated to save data and enhance loading speeds. However, we still get a lot of flexibilities when it comes to the design— starting from changing colors and fonts to adding the desired logo. Just that, the palette isn’t as exhaustive as the original version.
Again, articles residing on AMP empowered pages showcase a solitary column— featuring images and texts. This way blog promotions are curbed as masthead details aren’t visible. The regular sidebar is also missing, as seen with the desktop version. According to experts, accelerated pages for mobiles might not be as advanced as the ones on desktop but they are still capable entities when it comes to the design cues.
Bloggers are skeptical about the elimination of pop-ups and opt-in forms— as blogging is usually initiated for collecting mobile addresses. However, the pages appearing on top with better search ranks aren’t the best fillers. Many bloggers are still concerned about the efficacy of AMP empowered pages as appearing on top isn’t any good if the business objectives cannot be fulfilled.
Accelerated Mobile pages haven’t found a strong foothold as of now but Google is conducting frequent tests based on phases— just to make then better. Google’s main concern is to improve the count of website visitors and serve the publishers in a better way.
Again, we can opt for an intuitive workaround that is still capable enough for getting in the desired set of services. At the bottom, one can share content links— redirecting to the concerned pages. However, publishers need to be careful about the quality of redirects. An intuitive approach to lead generation enables the user to click on a link at the bottom which can then lead to a page of opt-ins. AMP isn’t all glam and can still be useful if you are ready to work around it.
Experts at Google believe it is a matter of time AMP websites become compulsory as ramifications are imminent in the field of blogging. Most of the online platforms including kik messenger for pc have already integrated accelerated pages for prudent blogging and this is just a small doorway to the world of infinite certainties.
Integrating your WordPress with Accelerated Mobile Pages
The procedure for bloggers is pretty simple here as one needs to go to the ‘Plugin Directory’ and search out for AMP. Once installed, the plugin needs to be enabled. This will automatically initiate AMP pages— adding /amp at the extreme end of your URLs. The next step would be to install the functional PageFrog plugin as it assists with colors, design elements, layouts and a lot more. This is important as AMP can now be defined for selective pages with PageFrog. Both these plugins are free— AMP offers a white layout with images and text whereas PageFrog allows us to optimize the same besides connecting the AMP with ‘Google Analytics’. Advertisements can also be enabled on using the latter.
Many of us look to include Google Analytics and then one must stack in AMP separately. Visit Google Analytics and pretend as if a new website is being created. Once initiated, paste the acquired code into the PageFrog. Metrics will surely differ as people perceive analytics differently in comparison to regular webpages as instead of clicks, swipes and presses are functional.
Bottom Line
The changes are fast coming in and Google will surely be integrating different enhancements to the AMP tracking. However, many metrics from Google Analytics won’t function as standard AMP properties.
