Mobile traffic: the strategic role of AMP pages

Mobile traffic: the strategic role of AMP pages

By now, mobile traffic is more important than desktop traffic is a reality. Users, including us, use much more Smartphone’s and tablets than PCs and the consequences of search engine searches come from there. Why is it so important? Does anything change with a view to positioning strategy (SEO)? Yes, it changes a lot, although to all this we add the importance of the so-called AMP that Google has long put in place.

Mobile traffic and “accelerated pages”

The acronym AMP stands for “accelerated pages for mobile”, or a particular technology put in place by Google to allow users to better use the sites through their portable devices. What many ignore, or pretend to be non-goat, the importance, in fact, is that mobile access requires special precautions on the structure and content of the site.

In fact, how many times does it happen to search from your Smartphone and have to wait for exaggerated times (even tens of seconds if not more) before the site loads? But not only that all contents are clearly visible and easily accessible from the phone screen.

Here, the AMP pages aim to solve this problem and, as we will see, they are also proving valuable for their impact on the organic mobile traffic that they generate.

Features and benefits of AMP pages

The main advantage of the AMP pages is that they are very fast and allow quick reference without affecting the quality and richness of the contents. These pages, in fact, are characterized by a specific HTML AMP format. Compared to traditional HTML, this format contains a series of tags and rules that eliminate the elements that weigh more (and therefore slow down the load) from the code. This has the effect of faster loading, but not only.

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The advantages of this type of pages, in fact, are different and are related to the technical characteristics they integrate. One of the main ones is the use of a special Google Cache AMP. This is a network that loads AMP pages and allows automatic and faster management of their distribution. In addition, you can also use the advantages of the http 2.0 protocols, which offers the opportunity to upload, from the same source, both images and Java Script files and files.

Continuing to expose the characteristics of Google’s AMP pages, it is worth mentioning the execution of only asynchronous scripts, the reduction of style recalculations, a better management of priorities in the loading of resources and the use, for CSS, of styles incorporated.

This means, among other things, that the loading speed is much faster, but also that there is reduced data consumption by users. Advantages certainly not trivial and that for those involved in programming and site optimization have significant value.

The weight of the AMP pages on organic mobile traffic

We anticipated how AMP pages have a particular impact on organic mobile traffic. Let’s try to better understand this aspect, perhaps the most important for those who work on websites.

Google has always denied a greater impact of AMP pages on SERP positioning. The ranking, therefore, does not depend on this. In reality there are at least two considerations to make. The first is “news”, the second “theoretical”. Let’s start with the latter.

Google has always stated how the performance of a site is very important and how these are a decisive ranking factor. Especially as regards the famous user experience, or the experience that users have of their browsing. It is inevitable that a faster, more stable and richer reality will affect user satisfaction. They therefore view more pages during their sessions, have longer residence times and, again, a lower bounce rate. From theory to practice. What has just been said has been found in several cases examined, for which the AMP pages generate all these benefits and, consequently, affect the positioning. In fact the opposite would have been curious.

Organic trafficking: not just AMP

Finally, we must moderate the enthusiasm of those who think that the conversion of their mobile site to the AMP standard is the solution to all evils. Nothing more wrong. Again it is both theory and practice that prove it. The cases taken into consideration, in fact, show that if the analyzed site had a negative trend, it remained the same even with the adoption of the so-called accelerated pages. Which, again, should not surprise us?

The reason is very simple and must be identified in the fact that SEO NYC, SERP, ranking, AMP and organic traffic are not magic wands that it is sufficient to shake once to obtain positive and lasting results. There is a need for constant work, continuous analysis of the results and the commitment to create quality content that is really useful for users.

Edward Powell