Setting AMP for Success at #BrightonSEO

Aleyda Solis
Orainti
Setting AMP for Success
@aleyda
https://www.slideshare.net/aleydasolis

#ampsuccess at #brightonseo by @aleyda from @orainti
There’s a critical need for speed

The reasons are reaaaaally scary

To avoid your users to leave your Mobile site…

Killing your conversions

Causing them stress (I’m not kidding)

Your users have minimum expectations ;)

2  
Seconds

Fundamental as Mobile users  
are the majority now!

Mobile speed is only getting more important  
with Google’s mobile ﬁrst index too

“I might not know nothing but  
mobile sites need to load really fast”

But how much time does the mobile home page
of an important UK retailer takes to load?

Wanna guess? Let’s do a bet…

Oooops!

#ampsuccess at #brightonseo by @aleyda from @orainti#ampsuccess at #brightonseo by @aleyda from @orainti
Wait a minute… (literally in this case)

or 20 seconds for that matter?

Surprise surprise!

“I really don’t know nothing”

Consequences are devastating

The solution is to implement WPO principles  
to make your Mobile site to load fast
https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/rules

Jon has made this awesome site to help  
with it and will speak about it later
https://makefastsites.com/

Sadly, big sites have restrictive legacy systems  
& small ones little resources to improve it

That’s why Google launched AMP
almost two years ago

It uses a “simpliﬁed” HTML version with
optimised resources & cache to serve it faster

AMP should be published “parallely”  
to your current (slower) Web pages
https://amp.businessinsider.com/ 
game-of-thrones-gendry-olympian-running-meme-2017-8
http://www.businessinsider.com/ 

Let’s push that Tesla AMP ludicrous
speed button, baby!
YESSSSSS

https://amp.businessinsider.com/ 
http://www.businessinsider.com/ 
AMP is certainly much faster!

Again
Original Mobile Page AMP URL Version

and again

I told you so!

AMP is also cached and pre-rendered  
by Google when shown in Mobile SERPs
Google AMP Viewer URL 
that is pre-rendered
Canonical URL of the Page
Content served from
AMP Cache URL

So is even faster when shown to
users in Google’s Mobile SERPs

Although AMP usage is not (yet)  
a ranking factor

Google made it a requirement to  
be included in its News Carrousels

and can be also  
shown in organic results
AMP article rich results 
Can be free-standing in the results page,
or embedded in a carousel of similar
result types. All AMP article rich results
are also rich results.
AMP non-rich results 
A basic, non-graphical search result
pointing to the AMP page.

Overriding also app deep  
links in Mobile SERPs

Now also shown in Mobile “Position 0”

All this has skyrocketed its visibility …

As well as the extra trafﬁc  
sites can get from using it
AMP Rich Results
AMP Non-Rich Results
Non-AMP Results
More Mobile organic visibility
and traffic from AMP than non-
AMP results

Incentivising its adoption, especially  
among big media oriented sites
Data by Sistrix

Boom!

So AMP is not a solution
for your original site pages
speed, but a “mobile Web
speed add-on”

In case Google sees this, remember that is
Tyrion Lannister saying this, not Aleyda ;)
BLAME HIM!
SHAAAAME

That’s why there are reservations: “AMP has a
good intentions… but sacriﬁce the open Web”
https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/ampersand/

You shouldn’t then use
AMP as a silver bullet
Mobile speed solution
but an alternative in case
you can proﬁt from it

Avoid this type of experience
https://thirtybees.com/blog/amp-is-bad-for-e-commerce/

Or this other! If you can really make your own  
mobile site speed faster, do that ﬁrst please
https://kinsta.com/blog/disable-google-amp/

Some people can’t though and AMP will allow
them to at least make their content accessible
https://www.alexkras.com/google-amp-is-winning/

So, for those of you who
don’t have a mobile site,
can’t improve its own mobile
speed or are information
sites that could proﬁt from
the extra visibility…

Here are 7 Do’s & Don’ts  
to use AMP for success

1. Verify if you can
Implement your current
Mobile Web UI &
functionality with AMP

<>
You want to avoid this

Validate that your mobile Web functionality  
can be replicated by using AMP
https://www.ampproject.org/docs/reference

There’s also a well documented roadmap  
specifying the functionalities to come
https://www.ampproject.org/roadmap/

Check with your development team if you  
have the capacity and ﬂexibility to use them
https://ampbyexample.com/

You can even test and code while validating it 
directly in the AMP Playground editor
https://ampbyexample.com/playground/

And although with WP there are free plugins  
that highly facilitate the implementation
https://wordpress.org/plugins/amp/ + https://wordpress.org/plugins/glue-for-yoast-seo-amp/

They’re not an “out of the box” solution…  
they still will need design personalisation

You can also use freemium and paid  
WP plugins like AMP for WP and weeblrAMP
https://www.weeblrpress.com/ + https://wordpress.org/plugins/accelerated-mobile-pages/

That will allow you to personalise more, but  
you’ll likely need further development support

This is what you really want. 
Which one is the AMP version?
=

Exactly! You need to keep the UI and  
functionality consistent, like Gizmodo does
=

2. Check your AMP
visibility potential to
prioritise your
implementation accordingly

Verify the share and type of queries for which
AMP results are shown in your industry
https://www.sistrix.com/

Identify which of them are shown along SERP
features to prioritise and format your content

Like this

Once you launch, follow-up w/ your own AMP
results via the Google Search Console

Verifying the top queries per AMP URL,  
to identify opportunities

Just be mindful of GSC false positives!

Use SEOmonitor to track AMP for your targeted
keywords, whether you’re ranking or not
https://www.seomonitor.com/

And to spot again opportunities  
vs. your competitors

3. Avoid implementing
AMP when you have an
independent mobile Web
Version

Do you really want to manage *another*  
independent mobile version? Enough said!
Desktop Web Parallel Mobile Web Version with M subdomain
AMP version under the M subdomain
Google AMP Viewer URL
Canonicalize to
Generates

4. Validate your AMP
implementation before and
after launch with SEO
crawlers to minimise issues

Besides revising your top pages conﬁguration
directly with the “ofﬁcial” AMP Validator
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amp-validator/nmoffdblmcmgeicmolmhobpoocbbmknc?hl=en

Crawl all of them to identify potential issues  
before and after launching
https://sitebulb.com/

SEO crawlers like Sitebulb and Deepcrawl  
already include reports featuring AMP issues
https://www.deepcrawl.com/

5. Monitor your AMP
implementation with the
GSC AMP report, where
you should focus on
ﬁxing critical issues ﬁrst

It’s usual to be overwhelmed by the increase of
AMP issues when launching and doing changes
SIGH

Prioritise to ﬁx critical issues ﬁrst, which will be
the ones preventing to be shown in SERPs
THIS

Start with those affecting the highest number  
of pages and check them directly there

Focus on identifying how the non-supported
code is included, so it is replaced or removed

YES
Rinse and repeat until you  
minimise critical errors

6. Don’t link to your AMP
URLs … unless you don’t
have a Mobile friendly site
or the one you have has
serious speed issues

There’s an inconsistent mobile user experience
when accessing to AMP pages from SERPs

Which makes you share and link to the  
non-canonical Google AMP Viewer URL

iOS11 will take a ﬁrst step to avoid this. It’s  
advisable to double-verify when linking though.

7. Don’t want to keep
your users in AMP? Take
them to your canonical
mobile Web version

You can then refer your users to your original
Website version to see more information, like this

With this strategic AMP
approach, you’ll have
higher chances of success,
but if you want to disable
it, don’t forget SEO best
practices

Remove the rel=”amphtml” link tag and  
301-redirect AMP URLs to your canonical ones
HANDY WP
PLUGIN
https://kinsta.com/blog/disable-google-amp/

It’s time to make that AMP throne yours!

Let’s go

Thanks

Setting AMP for Success at #BrightonSEO

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