AMP Explained: How to Increase Your WordPress Site Speed

What Is AMP and Why Is It Good for Your Website?

Accelerated Mobile Pages, or simply “AMP” is a great way to provide flexibility and a better performance to the mobile version of your website. Since the number of mobile site visitors is growing on a daily basis, a website’s performance speed and mobile responsiveness are critically important.

The AMP open-source library offers both of these benefits to your website. It optimizes your website’s style and imagery as well as sends page information to Google servers. This may result in an almost instant website access by users who come across it through Google search results.

Since the AMP is open-source and built from already existing libraries, it can be easily integrated and managed on various CMS systems, such as WordPress. Because of this simplicity, you do not need a programming team to build the whole website for you. You will be able to modify the website by yourself using the same skills that are sufficient for managing a regular WordPress website.

Before we proceed to Pros and Cons, I want to ask a question. Did you know what ranking in google depends not only on speed load, but also on hosting server stability? If your server is not stable, that may result in loss of current ranking or just not getting anywhere.

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 Pros and Cons of AMP:
Pros:

Optimization of loading speed that has an impact on the visitors.

Compatibility with the most popular already existing analytic tools, such as Google Analytics.

Minimalistic content results in easier page navigation.

Can be integrated with other CMS, not only WordPress.

Cons:

Content loaded on your website by 3^rd party sources will not be affected by the optimization.

Limitations on CSS and JavaScript usage regarding load speed optimization.

Installation:

The AMP can be installed like any other Plugin that is available for WordPress. You can start by accessing your WordPress admin panel. Afterwards, choose “Plugins” on the left side menu and pick the “Add New” option. Enter “AMP” into the search bar, look for the desired plugin (one of the contributors should be Google) and press “Install Now” once you find it. When the installation is completed, Activate it!

When the plugin is active, you will be able to start using its features. For the general settings of the plugin, check the “AMP → General” section on the dashboard. In the “Appearance → AMP” section you will be able to modify the design of your website’s mobile version.

Since the AMP plugin covers the basic adjustment options, in addition to the regular AMP plugin, WordPress offers various other AMP plugin complements that provide more AMP usage configurations.

The final step is website validation, so that it can be seen by various search engines, like Google. This can be done through your browser by visiting your website and adding “#development=1” at the end of the URL, for example:

https://www.hostens.com/shared-hosting/#development=1

Next, open your browser’s console, for example, Chrome DevTools, and check for validation errors.

 Should All Websites Be Using AMP?

If your website already has a mobile friendly and responsive design, there is no need to check with the AMP plugin. It is mostly beneficial to new publishers, either private or company blog sites that attract their audience not only through desktop versions but also on mobile devices. Even if you are not mobile friendly yet, you should definitely check it out and compare the performance with it in respect to the current performance of your website.

Since the AMP is still being developed and is still striving towards perfection, you can remain a spectator for now and simply keep an eye on its development. However, do not forget about it, since in the future it can have some serious impact on the positioning of websites in the search results of various search systems, not only Google.

The article was prepared for you by Hostens.com