What is AMP and why should I care?
AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. In the simplest terms, it is an open-source (meaning anyone can freely access the codes) initiative to make pages that load faster for mobile users. Google has been pushing it since 2015.
According to the AMP website, conversions fall by 12% for every second a page takes to load – that’s wild!
With AMP a page usually loads in less than a second. Math isn’t my forte but that sounds like a lot of folks that won’t be getting pissed and moving on.
Intro to AMP
How is AMP so fast?
This guy isn’t the most exciting presenter but this video does a great job of explaining in easy to understand terms how
The AMP controversy
Not everyone is a fan of this initiative. There’s a wide range of complaints, from annoying bugs to claims that Google is unfairly prioritizing AMP content, making the internet more biased.
Getting into the debate is beyond the scope of this blog, but if you want to read more, I recommend this article or, especially if you have an e-commerce site, this one.
How to set up AMP on your WordPress
Fortunately, understanding what AMP is is the trickiest part; setting it up on your blog is super easy!
- Head on over and download the AMP for WordPress Plugin.
- Go to your WordPress site, and click the Plugin link on the lefthand menu.
- Click ‘Add New’ right at the top of the page.
- Find the AMP zip file and upload it. When the page reloads, click the Activate button and you’re done!
If you’re using Yoast (which I use and recommend!) you’ll also want this plugin to help you get the most of AMP: Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP
It takes a few days for Google to recrawl your website and have the AMP symbol show up beside eligible pages in search results so don’t panic if it’s not there right away.
To check out the mobile layout, add /amp/ to the end of your URL. You’ll probably want to hop over to the Theme Customizer and change the header colour, which is under your new AMP section.
Your personalization options are pretty limited. This structured layout is one of the things that helps the page load quickly, so if you’re super particular about the appearance of your website, you may want to test it out
That’s it, your done!
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