It is hard to believe that it is 2015 and many are still running such poorly optimized websites.
Content is served up on sites with bloated code with gigantic images from overcrowded, slow servers. Pop-ups try to capture your email address, ads are all over the place, and it appears that most people are still crafting content for the desktop first and mobile second.
Will Google Accelerated Mobile Pages Help with SEO?
As of December 2015, no. But…
On December 9, 2015, Google announced that they will be rolling AMP pages in to search results as early as February 2016. That said, for the average small business owner it could be quite some time before they can easily take advantage of AMP pages.
In the future it is possible that AMP pages will get special labels in Google Mobile Search Results, increasing click through rates from users of mobile devices.
Preferential treatment of AMP pages is also extremely likely. Your pages won’t magically jump to page 1 but AMP will at least be a factor in the ranking of certain pages.
And, of course, there will be those who implement AMP pages incorrectly. I have been toying with AMP pages on some experimental WordPress sites, and I am most happy with a URL structure which remains the same and adds /amp to the end of the URL. I’m sure we will see poor site navigation and improper canonical tags on many AMP pages, and in those cases, the pages will do more harm than good. Also, the WordPress AMP Plugin is in its infancy at the moment.
Until then, keep on creating great, unique content and concentrating on a quality user experience. And keep in mind that you may end up using AMP at some point for reasons other than “just SEO”.
Of course, there is no doubt that “AMP SEO” will be a thing, and there will be a right and wrong way to implement schema markup.
AMP Examples:
The Guardian has the best implementation of AMP pages that I have seen yet. Just add /amp to any of their news articles to see how they look. Here are 2 links for the lazy. Link #2 is the AMP page:
Here’s a not-so-great example of an AMP page on one of my many WordPress websites:
Example of how WordPress AMP converts pages as of December 2015
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I think it’s safe to assume that Google will pretty much always give preferential treatment to anything Google-related. For example, just look at how highly YouTube videos tend to rank for things – that’s no accident, methinks.
So it turns out the predictions were spot on. AMP does indeed get some preferential treatment. Google has confirmed that it doesn’t impact rankings in any significant way. For most people, it should be avoided like the plague.