Google backs the AMP protocol, which is a simpler way of coding mobile sites. It’s a bit of a throwback to HTML with some extra goodies thrown in. This is what Google has to say about it:
AMP is an open-source library that provides a straightforward way to create web pages that are compelling, smooth, and load near instantaneously for users. AMP pages are just web pages that you can link to and are controlled by you.
AMP builds on your existing skill sets and frameworks to create web pages. AMP is supported by many different platforms, and it’s compatible across browsers.
AMP’s ecosystem includes 25 million domains, 100+ technology providers, and leading platforms, that span the areas of publishing, advertising, e-commerce, local and small businesses, and more!
Basically, all sites used to be built with HTML. You might remember them, with dancing Jesus and rainbow titles. Then CSS – cascading style sheets – came into vogue with a ton more possibilities for designing a site. The only problem is that having the browser retrieve and read numerous CSS stylesheets in order to display the page properly is time-consuming and, coupled with the incredible slowness of 3G-4G cellular, takes forever to load a mobile site.
So AMP was born to provide a much lighter-weight page load. Due to the limited capabilities of AMP, your mobile site will never match the desktop version with it’s spinning wheels and dancing Jesuses. But consider what your clients are looking for when they come upon your mobile site: your address, phone, schedule, products. If you can’t show these to a visitor in under 2 seconds, they’re gone on to the next site.
In order for your site to show up in Google’s mobile search engine, your site needs to have AMP pages to load for small devices. You can learn more about creating and installing AMP on the AMP Project website.
