AMP stands for accelerated mobile pages and has some benefits for those looking to improve their SEO. So, what can Amp do for you? The goal of AMP is for your site to load quicker on mobile devices since your sites mobile responsiveness is a crucial part of it’s Google ranking. Faster responsiveness = user friendliness. Optimizing your websites pages with AMP means that those users with a clunky data plan don’t have to wait as long when loading the page they want to see. AMP works by stripping the page down by using a more streamlined version of CSS with no Javascript so that the content loads extremely fast. Javascript forces lazy loading which makes your site a turtle when it comes to speed. Try searching google for whatever topic is popular at the moment and you will see many top news sites with the words AMP next to them. These sites top priority is speed and dependability, sometimes even over shareability.
AMP is not for everyone, especially for landing or product pages. However, your blog or news page would benefit, especially if you are constantly updating your site with new content. AMP works on WordPress sites via a plugin by Automattic. Activating the plugin will affix AMP on all your pages without redirecting mobile visitors to these AMP pages. The next step will be adding the code below to your .htaccess file via an FTP.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/amp$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (android|blackberry|googlebot\-mobile|iemobile|iphone|ipod|\#opera\ mobile|palmos|webos) [NC]
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9-]+)([\/]*)$ https://yourdomain.com/$1/amp [L,R=302]
*change yourdomain.com to your actual site’s domain name.
The last step will be to edit your CSS so that your AMP pages have the same look and feel of your site. You will find your CSS file in your FTP by going to your wp-content -> plugins -> amp -> template.php. We have found in order to keep anything Panda related off of your rear, make sure you’re using rel=”canonical” tags to your original pages. Time-Savers, Inc will be glad to assist you in making any AMP changes to your existing WordPress site. Give us a call today to see how we can save you time!