The Future Of Desktop Webpage Optimization In AMP Era

Search engine optimization has, for more than a decade, been the ultimate tool in letting the content of any particular online brand get more views. While SEO is still very much an important tool, the Accelerated Mobile Pages project or AMP is poised to alter the game even further by making sure web pages load on mobile devices as much as four times faster. There are obviously a lot of important repercussions to increasing the speed of loading times of web pages, but primarily, a faster loading time ensures that anyone wishing to view a particular website does indeed stay on the page long enough for the view to count. Does this affect a webpage’s ranking though?

With this new development, how exactly is the future of desktop webpage optimization affected, particularly since this would entice people to use their mobile devices for web browsing more often as opposed to the use of the traditional desktop? Let’s take a look at how key players are reacting and a few other important aspects of the issue.

With great demand, Facebook, Apple and Google adjust how they publish. In this modern era, there are three specific names that come to mind when it comes to online related business. There’s Facebook, the social media juggernaut that has become very much ingrained in almost every one’s personal life and business. Then there are Apple and Google, two competing companies that may have split consumers in half when it comes to the number of their loyal following. One thing that three brands have in common is the fact that they also rely on their content loading as quickly as possible. It has been shown through research that the average person usually abandons a page after three seconds of waiting for it to load. To be precise, “47% of people expect a web page to load in two seconds or less.”  That is nearly half of potential viewership. All of the three brands mentioned have had previous attempts to speed up the loading process, since they are the publishers of some of the most in demand content on the internet. Facebook has Instant Articles, Apple had Apple Articles, and Google has AMP. AMP comes in to ensure that abandonment of pages is minimized if not eliminated.

How Does It Work? How Does It Impact Ranking?

In the simplest terms possible, AMP takes the content of a web page and optimizes it for the relatively limited capabilities of a smartphone (compared to desktops that is). One can tell the difference visually, as AMPs tend to look more bare bones than the full version of the web pages, without sacrificing quality visual presentation. All the essential elements are presented in a no-frills style, eliminating many other unnecessary technical requirements the pages usually have and thus hastening load times. While this may be very convenient, surprisingly enough, it is not really a ranking factor. Granted, the faster load times do increase the chances of viewership, but, AMPs are generally helpful for the convenience of the people browsing.

Now What’s The Actual Impact On Optimization?

Whether AMP does make mobile web browsing more attractive to users, optimization still lies within the traditional factors: quality content, domain authority, and organic traffic. Basically, AMP, as an innovation, improves the general browsing experience, particularly for smartphone users. It helps, but online marketers still need to produce quality as well as employ the right strategies to increase their ranking, whether consumers are on their desktops or their smartphones.

Correlation Of AMP And User Experience:

Yes, the prioritization of AMP doesn’t directly impact SERP rankings. But looking into it more thoroughly, it indirectly impacts rankings through these following factors:

• Page Speed – it is a ranking factor under your website’s architecture and this is the main goal of AMP
• Bounce Rate – the more people leaving your website because it takes too long to load, the less likely you’ll rank high.
• Mobile friendliness – basically, you have to ensure AMP pages to be responsive too.

Resources To Get You AMP Ready!

Neil’s SEO Analyzer – It produces SEO audit for your website which will point out the errors and suggestions to improve SEO score. Take note of the mobile analysis for your site and work from there to ensure responsiveness before going AMP.
WordPress AMP Plugin – This plugin simplifies the way you can dynamically create AMP version of your pages.