Wbsite speed on mobile is considered one of the most important criteria for your site’s ranking in search results, and there are many technologies that help you with this task, including the AMP accelerated pages system, which helps you give super-speed to your site’s pages on mobile.
But what is the AMP system and how does it address the problem of poor speed and increased bounce rate specifically for smartphone browsers? How can the AMP plugin be used on a WordPress website to benefit from this system? What are the pros and cons of using it? In this article, we will go on a journey in which we review the answers to these questions, highlighting the details of the AMP system and how to use it to develop your site.
AMP page acceleration system, what do you know about it?
The Accelerated Mobile Pages system, known as AMP, is an open source project launched by Google in 2015. Its aim is to improve the browsing experience of smartphone users after the widespread annoyance expressed by these users with the relatively slow browsing process on their devices.
Many users want to get quick information or perhaps preview a page in a hurry, and when browsing sites they encounter a large amount of content that makes the page loading process very slow, which causes great aversion for users from that site.
What Google proposed with the Page Acceleration Project is to remove secondary components and elements on pages and focus on the content requested by the user. This step will make the page loading process a snap, requiring only a few seconds. User satisfaction with the site means a definite increase in search results for that site.
When smartphone browsers search for a topic, Google prioritizes search results that include the AMP version. This means that if you have an AMP version of a specific article, Google will present it to users before the rest of the articles that do not include an AMP version, even if the content is of the same quality and SEO standards are at the same level.
How does AMP work and do you really need to activate it on your site?
You should know that the speed of loading your site’s page plays a decisive role in what is known as the bounce rate of your page, and the bounce rate is one of the criteria for search engine optimization (SEO) of your site. How might you wonder?
Well, you should always keep in mind that Google is a search engine specifically designed to provide the best results to browsers. Now let’s assume that you have a page that includes specific content and has all the details that the user is searching for, and there is a competing page that talks about the same topic but lacks the information and effort that you made to create the content. Your page’s ranking in the search results is first and the competing page’s ranking is second.
Now a smartphone user clicks on your page link in the search results. He waits five seconds, then ten, and the content he is looking for does not appear. He soon loses his patience, exits the site and goes to the competing site below you, and the content appears in less than two seconds. What will happen now, in your opinion? If this process is repeated 50 or 100 times?
Google will understand that the content of your page is inappropriate, as many users quickly exit it, even though the content may be useful, and Google does not want to put any content to its users that they do not like, and the result is that your page’s ranking in search results will decline significantly. On the other hand, a competing page that does not have content of the quality you provided will rise in rank and quickly outperform your page in search results. The reason is the page loading speed and bounce rate.
AMP system and bounce rate
Bounce rate is the rate at which users exit after they visit one of your site’s pages. If you have 1,000 visitors and 500 exit quickly, this is a serious indicator for Google of the quality of the page’s content. What we must clarify now is that the AMP system is specific to smartphone users, and as you know, the popularity of smartphones has overtaken all other electronic devices, and this means that you have to take good care of the experience you provide to these users through your site.
Here comes the role of the AMP system, as it is an ideal solution to win browsers on smartphones, get their attention, and attract them more to the content of your page. But the question that may be on your mind now is: How will the AMP system help me improve the loading speed of my site and improve the bounce rate?
We will not go into programming details that you may not need, but what you should know is that the speed of loading Internet pages through browsers on smartphones depends on two things: The first is what is known as the DOM ready time, which represents the time that the browser needs to It loads your page’s HTML code and parses it into displayable elements. The second is the loading time of all page elements.
When there are a lot of details on your page, both the dom loading time and the page loading time will be relatively large. Now comes the AMP system dom, which creates an identical copy of the content of your page, but without the additional details that hinder loading and increase the loading time.
When a smartphone user browses one of your site pages, Google will automatically provide him with the version that includes the AMP system, while users of computers and other devices can browse in traditional mode.
Using AMP in WordPress
Perhaps the main advantage of the Accelerated Pages project is that it supports WordPress and many other content management sites, and this gives many website owners the opportunity to try this system on their pages.
There are two basic plugins in WordPress that support adding the AMP system to site pages: the AMP by Automattic plugin and the AMP for WP plugin. We will detail later in our article the stages of activating both plugins with a third addition, which is the Glue for Yoast plugin and adjusting the necessary settings for your site accordingly.
The most popular plugins for introducing AMP to WordPress sites are:
AMP by Automattic : It is the basic add-on that will introduce the AMP feature to your site. This add-on creates a special version for each page on your site called the “AMP version.” This version will be presented by Google to browsers when they search for any of the topics it includes.
- AMP for WP : It is one of the most famous add-ons for the AMP system. Among the most prominent features offered by this add-on are: the ability to add Google Adsense ads to the page copy, add the legal link attribute or what is known as the “canonical tag,” and many other advantages that will We go into details later.
- Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP : One of the most important features offered by this plugin is the ability to display all pages, blogs, and multimedia, such as video and images, as an AMP version. In addition to the ability to modify the external appearance of the pages, the site icon “Logo,” and many other features that give greater freedom in modifying the elements of pages and blogs that will appear to smartphone browsers. It is worth noting that this plugin requires installing and activating the SEO Yoast plugin on the WordPress site before activating it.
What AMP does is create “thumbnail” versions of your pages. These versions include the basic elements of them. This may include the featured image, content, sources, some ads, or space for comments.
Advantages and disadvantages of the AMP system
It is necessary, before you make the decision to adopt the AMP system on your site, to learn about the positive and negative points, and the strengths and weaknesses that accompany the use of this system, and your full awareness of what you need to offer to visitors through your site is the key to making the right decision, and below we will mention the most important advantages and disadvantages that it includes. AMP System:
Advantages
AMP offers you the following features:
- Providing a fast and smooth browsing experience for smartphone users, especially users who suffer from slow connection speeds; Meaning, if your target audience for your site is concentrated in areas with slow connectivity, the AMP system will be the ideal solution.
- Since the AMP system is a project specific to Google, it is natural for those who use this system on their sites to reap positive results in terms of the sites’ ranking in search results. This means that if you have the AMP version of your pages, you practically support their SEO.
- Increasing the data transfer rate (what is known as traffic) on your pages. This is actually something that goes without saying. The AMP system speeds up the loading of your page to the user and presents it to him within a few seconds. The result is that the user is satisfied and will start reading the content. If the content is useful, then you have achieved two successes: You kept the user in Your page has been running for a long time, and you have gained his psychological satisfaction with your site’s content and evaluation, and this will give you a strong boost in search results on Google.
- Reducing the loading time of your pages via the AMP system will contribute to reducing the pressure on your site’s hosting server, and this means speeding up your page more. The lower the content of the pages and their loading rate, the lower the pressure on the hosting sites, and thus this will have a positive effect on all sites.
Disadvantages
Despite the great advantages that AMP offers, it has some drawbacks that are worth considering, which are:
- The working principle of the AMP system is based on removing a lot of unnecessary code (HTML, Java, and CSS), and this means that you will lose a lot of features and interactive elements from your page, for example, buttons for sharing content through social media, interactive content, and often even ads.
However, AMP for WP allows you to use the AMP system while maintaining many interactive elements, such as share buttons and some ads.
- The AMP add-on from Automattic only supports Google Analytics. This means that you will not be able to manage site content, survey the number of visitors, data transfer rate, and other important statistical data to effectively manage your site except through the “Google Analytics” service.
While the AMP for wp plugin supports many other tools and companies, such as: Segment Analytics, Piwik Analytics, Quantcast Measurement, and others.
- Limited ads, and this may actually constitute an obstacle for many website owners, as many of us rely primarily on ads to achieve profits. Adding ads in the AMP version of your page will be a tedious process compared to adding them to your non-AMP pages.
Once again, the AMP for WP plugin is of great benefit to us as it provides us with a wider range of ad formats, and there is also a paid add-on that adds many more ad types to the list that you can add to the AMP version of your page.
- If you decide to create your pages according to the AMP system and then change your mind and decide to remove it, you will need to redirect all the pages that were according to that system to the new pages that are not AMP, which is known as a “301 redirect”, although this process is not a big deal. However, it is one of the things that you must take into account before you decide to create AMP pages.
- One of the limitations that you may encounter when using the AMP system is that some Arab countries prevent displaying the AMP version of your pages, so some users may be surprised that your page is blocked and they need to activate a VPN in order to enter and view the page content.
Using and installing the AMP system on a WordPress website
It is worth noting that some of the steps that we are about to detail assume that you have activated the Yoast SEO plugin on your WordPress site; It is an essential addition in order to rank at the top of search results and support the site’s SEO. Of course, you can skip the steps related to setting up the AMP system for the Yoast add-on if you have not yet activated this add-on, and you can continue to configure and activate the AMP system on the site without adding Yoast.
Install the AMP by Automattic plugin
This is the basic plugin, which includes the main options of the AMP system, and other complementary plugins depend on it (AMP for WP and Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP), so we will first start by installing the AMP by Automattic plugin first. What this add-on will do after you install it is create a second copy of all the blogs on your site. You can access these blogs by adding the suffix “amp” to the end of the page link. Here is an example of that:
Canonical page URL: http://yourcoolsite.com/awesome-post/
Page URL in AMP version Accelerated Pages: http://yourcoolsite.com/awesome-post/amp/
It should be noted that the AMP by Automattic add-on is limited to creating copies of blogs only as a default option on your site without pages, and we must change that from the add-on settings later after installing it, or by installing and setting up other add-ons, which we will mention in detail, which will serve as an expansion of the scope of copy powers and features. AMP on your website pages.
As for how to install the AMP plugin in WordPress, it is simple, and the steps are as follows:
1- We will choose from your WordPress dashboard menu “Plugins” and then “Add New”
2- A list of available plugins for WordPress will appear. From the search field, we will type the name of the plugin “AMP for WordPress” and click Search.
3- We will choose the add-on from Automattic, and you should pay attention to the presence of many similar add-ons. What you have to check is the source of the add-on, which is the company mentioned.
4-The next step is to download this add-on and then activate it.
5- After activating the add-on, we will return to the WordPress control panel and click on the “Appearance” option, then “AMP”, after which a page will appear to customize the AMP system settings on your site.
6- After activating the add-on, we will return to the WordPress control panel and click on the “Appearance” option, then “AMP”, after which a page will appear to customize the AMP system settings on your site.
7- The modifications that we can make from here are limited to changing the font, background color, and theme (light or dark). The changes will appear to you on the page directly next to the list. After choosing what suits you, we will click on “Publish” in order to install the changes and update them on all pages. your location.
We can expand the scope of the AMP system to also include pages on your site – not just blogs – by going to the “AMP” option from the WordPress control panel, then “General”, after which we will put a check mark next to the “Pages” option, as in the picture.
You will notice so far that there are significant limitations in making modifications and customizations to your page in the AMP version, and for most site owners these options will be insufficient and more settings are necessary, especially with regard to ads and interactive elements on your page. Here comes the role of the AMP for WP and Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP plugins.
Install and adjust Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP settings
This addition will be important if you have a blog and want to hit two goals at once; Accelerate the loading of your site pages and support its SEO at the same time. As we mentioned earlier, the basic add-on for the AMP system does not support the “SEO Yoast” add-on, so this add-on is necessary to integrate the Yoast tool into the AMP system.
After searching for this plugin, downloading it, and activating it as in the previous steps, you will notice that the “AMP” option appears in the “SEO Yoast” section in the WordPress panel. This addition includes more customization options for page design, from choosing a logo to modifying background colors, fonts, links, and other additional options.
Install and adjust AMP for WP plugin settings
Finding, downloading, and activating this plugin is very similar to the previous one, so we’ll assume we’ve downloaded and activated the plugin. You’ll notice additional options appear in the AMP section of your WordPress dashboard. These options include:
- SEO: In this option, you will be able to control the settings for the simplified page explanation, or what is known as the meta tags or description, for the AMP pages on your site, in addition to some tools related to SEO in general.
- Performance : It includes one option, which is to activate or disable minification. Minification is one of the software options that removes extra characters and instructions from the page code, and this would help significantly support loading speed.
- Analytics : We can adjust Google Tag Manager settings and some other statistical options.
- Comments: Comments : It gives us the option to add comments to the page, including comments from social media, such as Facebook and others.
- Advanced Settings: In this option, you can modify the code in the header and footer of pages and place external links, such as sources, sharing links, etc. (4)
After completing any modification, we must click “Save Changes”.
AMP FAQ
How many users does AMP have?
Here is encouraging information: until the end of 2020, in a survey, the percentage of website owners who adopted the AMP system on their pages did not exceed 0.1%. What does this mean? This means that you can anticipate many competitors and exploit this opportunity and add this system to your site. You may also be encouraged to know that Google is the one behind the innovation of this system. What do you understand from that?
This means that Google will place the AMP system on the list of priorities and SEO requirements in the search results for smartphone browsers sooner or later. This is the strategy it has been pursuing for years. It will be a wonderful opportunity and you should not miss it.
Are the basic AMP plugin and extensions free?
In fact, it is – at least in most of them – but if you want greater freedom in designing and adding secondary features to the AMP versions of your site’s pages, you should purchase the paid version of the AMP for WP plugin, which provides you with greater privacy in the external design of the page.
Is AMP an SEO component?
Until now, Google has not officially announced that having the AMP add-on itself is one of its SEO ranking criteria, but remember that the primary goal of this add-on is to accelerate page loading speed and reduce the bounce rate, which is one of the most prominent ranking criteria for Google.
Can I remove AMP after activating it on my site?
Yes, but all links to AMP versions will be broken. This means that you will need to redirect all links to pages that only have an AMP version, i.e. there is no other normal version of them, to new, active links.
Can I place ads on my AMP pages?
You will not be able to activate ads with the basic AMP add-on (from Automattic), but you can add it and modify many of its features through the free AMP for WP add-on in addition to its paid version, which offers more customization and design options for ads.
Although the AMP system has not yet gained that popularity, especially in the Arab world, many leading website owners have begun to adopt it in an attempt to win smartphone browsers to their side. If you want to give your visitors a fast and simple experience on your site, you must rush to adopt the AMP system. You do not want to lose the competition to win smartphone browsers. is not it? Share your experiences with AMP in the comments AMP wordpress
