The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project is an open source initiative that embodies the vision that publishers can create mobile optimized content once and have it load instantly everywhere.

In plain language

AMP is a new type of webpage code championed by Google that allow pages written in AMP to load in aproximately one second or less. This makes for a very good user experience for your site's visitors. They are alternate versions of the non-amp page that are used instead of the slower regular website's version of the page, in certain circumstances.

AMP get's it's amazing speed in two ways. 1. By being much more "bare bones" that a typical website page. 2. By being cached by CDNs like Google or Cloudflare.

 It’s similiar to competing products from Facebook and Apple.


Why?

In short, the internet is too slow. Everyone loves bells and whistles on their websites but the more bells and whistles that are added, the more the site slows down. The slower a website is, the worse it is for both the site owner, and the site visitor.

The days of people expecting a site to load in 6 seconds or less are over. Today’s internet user expects a website to be loaded and usable in 1-3 seconds. 


Now remember that most users are on their phones these days and those phones have slower internet connections than computers do.


Publishers, and Ecommerce sites probably benefit the most from AMP but making content more accesible to visitors is always a priority. Having your web pages load in the shortest possible time should be one of your top goals for both UX and SEO

  • Better Page Rank. An AMP page will rank higher than a non AMP page.
  • Eligible for highly prominent positioning within an Google’s AMP carousel that appear in search result pages.
  • 10% more time on-site for AMP visitors over regular pages.
  • Less bounced visitors
  • Better Ad conversion
  • Slate saw a 44% increase in monthly unique visitors and a 73% increase in visits per monthly unique visitor
  • Gizmodo saw a 50% increase in impressions. And 80% of Gizmodo’s traffic from AMP pages is new traffic.


Can you have AMP on your website?

Yes, but your website will not be 100% AMP compatible unless a special case is made. This is because a Wordpress website consists of different kinds of pages.

  1. Pages - These are pages that don’t change often. Most of your website will probably be made of Wordpress Pages.
  2. Posts - These are blog posts or news items. They may be categorized and may have discussions via comments. This is the type of content that is most often shared on the web.
  3. Custom Post Types - These may be added to your particular website to allow for custom content. A custom post type may be something unique for your business like Staff or Locations.
  4. Archives - A special page that lists Posts or Custom Post types.


Each of these page types would need to be AMP compatible in order for your website to be 100% AMP.

As of this writing (Nov 16th 2017) The official Wordpress plugin for AMP only supports page type #2 (Posts). This means that ONLY your blog posts would be AMP compatible. 

Currently Skunkworks is developing all client websites to have AMP compatibility for their blog posts but ONLY the blog posts. Skunkworks is able to add Page support (#1) to your site if desired but it comes with a few caveats.

  • Increases cost of website development - Requires extra time to implement.
  • Requires a programmer to make ANY changes manually - If even a minor change is required for the AMP version of the page at a later date a developer will be required to make the change. There is no Wordpress-like easy to use interface available for non-programmers.


Unless your firm is on a retainer or your AMP pages are designed in a way that they will not need updating in the future (eg: adding/removing staff bio links), you may want to avoid AMP compatible pages.


That being said… Google LOVES AMP pages, ranks them higher, and they're ridiculously fast which makes your site vistors very happy.


Where does it work?

AMP versions of webpages are usually loaded on mobile phones or in mobile app browsers like Facebook's or Twitter's. Google will display AMP versions of pages in Search Results to compatible devices/apps.


Is speed really that important?

Yes. The days of people expecting a site to load in 6 seconds or less are over. Today's internet user expects a website to be loaded and usable in 3 seconds or less. And most users are on their phones which have slower connections than computers.

Does AMP replace responsive websites?

No. Responsive design is a must-have. Plain and simple. It’s not even optional any more. AMP complements a responsive website but does not replace it.