AMP Sites: Pros And Cons Of Putting Google AMP On Your Site

Are you thinking about how to improve your mobile website but aren’t sure how to start an AMP project?  Well, AMP (accelerated mobile pages) is something you want to consider.

AMP has a lot of different features, and it can make a difference for a lot of people. Whether you’re going to use it or not, it’s something you at least want to consider.  So take a look at the pros and cons that we’ve found using the search engine Google AMP and how you’re going to improve your overall market with users and viewers.

Pros Of Using Google AMP

1. Improved User Experience

More and more website publishers are turning to AMP to drive more traffic. The most important feature that you will be improving is your overall user experience. Anyone who goes to your website is going to have to wait for it to load and they’re going to have to wade through a lot of content to find what they want. But if you use AMP they are going to have a much faster load process, and they’re also going to have less of the things that they don’t need because AMP pares down the overall website by getting rid of things it doesn’t think the reader will need or care about.

2. Fast Loading Pages Featuring Only Key Content

Next, it’s better optimized to load the things that are most important on your website first and then load other things. This is part of what makes it faster and part of what makes it better for the user, but it’s also going to make things better for you because people are less likely to ‘bounce’ when the information they want is the stuff that’s being displayed and loaded first. You want to make sure that you’re optimized as well as possible.

3. Improved Google Search Rankings

Google is going to give you some rewards based on starting an AMP project as well. After all, Google is creating this program, and they want people to use it. So, they give you, even more, benefits for using the program yourself. Your results will show up higher on a search result page than others because of that simple fact alone. It’s going to be important, and it’s going to ensure that you have more people coming to your website as a result, which is an added benefit. You want to get as many people to your website as you possibly can, and that requires you to rank high.

4. Conserve Server Resources

If you get a lot of people on your website from mobile devices you’re going to have less drain on your servers because you’re going to be pulling directly from the Google servers, though you will have to install a third-party JavaScript. However, more mobile users can make sure that you are getting more attention because you’re not overloading the website or the server itself by using it from different areas, you’re going to benefit. There will be a lot more people right there on your website, and you can keep everything going a whole lot longer.

5. Very Mobile Friendly Display

Everything is also going to be very specific in your AMP version of the website because you’re going to have everything exactly where you need it to be. Your images, videos, and animations are going to show up exactly where you want, and they are going to be exactly the size you want, so you get perfection (at least according to the design). Just make sure you are careful when specifying them to make sure they are right where you want them to be at all times.

Cons Of Using Google AMP

So now that we’ve taken a look at some of the benefits, it’s important to take a look at some of the drawbacks to the process. There’s absolutely nothing that you can do and not have some drawbacks to going along with it. The same applies to AMP and setting up your website in the best way possible. Make sure you understand what is going well and what isn’t when you decide to use this process for your website and then make sure that you are putting things together as well as possible.

1. Stripped Down Version of Content

The top thing you need to know about is that your AMP page is not the same as your original page. That means if someone shares a blog post or other page with AMP plugins or comments on it, they are not sharing or commenting on your overall website. You’re going to have a lot of different benefits from this process, but you’re not going to get the SEO benefits on your comprehensive website because the AMP plugin process is going to be slightly different and is going to have a different cache and different notation on the website. You want to take note of this because it’s going to affect what you get for SEO results.

2. Fewer Branding Elements

When it comes to branding your website you’re going to have some differences as well. You will have different changes to the website that are closer to a Google-style site than the things that your actual website will. This can reduce the overall branding and make sure that you are not getting quite as much benefit out of the website in this form, though it will help with some other things. You will still get some benefits, and you’re going to see more business, but you should still understand some of the less beneficial aspects associated with branding.

3. May Strip Some Ads from Content

You won’t be getting ad revenue from your AMP website because it gets rid of all of the extra things that you don’t actually need on the website. What that means is ads are going to be stripped out as well. This is going to reduce the way that your customers or viewers are able to see what you want to sell them. It can actually be a benefit for them, but you’re not going to have as much money because your ads aren’t being seen. The companies you work with or the websites you’re engaged with will be able to tell this and see that their ads are not being viewed by your viewers.

4. Analytics Complications

Next, you will have no analytics related to the mobile version of your website because it’s not the same as your traditional one and it doesn’t have the added features of analytics. This is something that has to download with the website and if you don’t have extra features downloading you most definitely will not have a lot of analytics being tracked. You will want to make sure that you are keeping track of what you can on your own rather than being able to get records from the Internet itself.

5. Different Display of Site Between Desktop and Mobile

Finally, you will have trouble with differences between the desktop and mobile versions of a website. Sometimes this is okay, and sometimes it’s going to cause some difficulties for you and your capabilities. Your viewers are going to see differences if they look at the desktop version and the mobile versions of your website. This can cause some difficulties for you and them, but you want to take a look at it anyway. Content can even be different from one version to the next, which is something to take notice of and be careful about.

If your content isn’t any good, you’re still going to get docked points, and you’re going to get docked because of bounce rate. You need to add good content to all of the benefits that are associated with AMP, or you’re going to have even more difficulties overall. Your content plays a huge role in whether you receive good results. While the AMP itself will give you benefits on Google, bad content will start to counter that, and you may end up with even more problems than you are getting benefits, so make sure you take a good look at your content and start improving it fast.

You’re tied directly to Google without any alternative when it comes to your mobile site. The mobile site is actually stored as cache directly on Google. If you try to sever that connection you are losing your mobile site entirely. You’re wasting some of the freedom and capabilities you would have without Google in order to get some benefits in the way of user-friendliness and some rankings. For some people, this might be an okay tradeoff but, for other people, it’s going to be too much sacrifice for not enough actual benefits associated.

You will spend a lot of time and effort on creating the AMP version of your website. Though some systems are easier than others, it’s not as easy as you would probably like it to be. You will need some new qualities and skills to make sure that you’re getting what you want. You’ll also have some trouble because you never know what will happen with AMP next since it’s something brand new for Google. You could end up needing a whole lot of new changes as you go along with the program.

Should You Use AMP?

So should you be using AMP for your website and your specific product, blog, mobile web, or anything else? Well, it’s going to be up to you to make the final decision about whether it’s going to work for you or not. At the same time, you’re going to want to look at the pros and cons to find out what’s going on with your business and then you’ll be able to work from there. But deciding if it’s a good thing takes some time.

If you have the time and the knowledge of coding to put into building your website and then creating a second website that will take care of the AMP features, then it can be a benefit. You will need to create two different websites for this, which isn’t easy for everyone.  Check out our “how to get your site on AMP article“. Make sure that you have a good understanding of coding because trying to create that second website without it can be a little more complicated and will take a lot more time and effort for you to learn what you need and work from there.

You can hire someone to work on creating an AMP HTML-based website for you if you prefer as well. This is going to cost you more money but it is a possibility. You want to make sure you think about it if you don’t really know how to do the coding and programming yourself but you’re interested in getting AMP yourself. Keep in mind that you can hire someone at any point you want or if you just need some help with things like validation later on in the process. Do your research on how much it could cost and what you should be doing to get more info about it if you’re interested.

Whatever you decide, you can get some benefits out of your website. Just optimizing for mobile viewing even without creating a full AMP website is going to be an immense benefit for you. Never forget about the people who are going to be using your website from their mobile device. Optimizing for mobile can be done in some different ways, and if you’re careful you can do it without a whole lot of extra work, so make sure that you are thinking about it before you jump into a lot of work with no real need.

Wrap Up

Many people believe that it’s a little bit too soon to jump onto the AMP bandwagon. It’s something that requires a lot of time, a lot of work and doesn’t provide a whole lot of measurable benefits at this point. There’s no knowing how long it’s going to remain the way it is and you could end up with a lot of changes still required even if you do put it all together for yourself. If you don’t want to put that much time into your website, you will want to consider the potential drawbacks of not having the system installed, but keep in mind that there’s always something new coming.