Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a technology whose goal is to render mobile website content nearly instantly. A stripped-down form of HTML, it has changed the game in digital marketing. In Singapore, our agency has seen positive results after implementing this on websites that needed more traffic.

Google knows everything. There are exceptions, but they are few. Mere mortals consult Google because Google is the god of websites—including yours. Ask and Google Almighty shall seek, scouring its plethora of knowledge to bring forth its believer from a plain white box of unenlightenment into a promised land of answers.

Like a deity with an iron fist, Google plays favourites.

Lined up, one by one, results from all over the world wide web converge in one place. Those it favours more appear first—ripe for the picking. It’s a no-brainer. Page One results become the most popular. People gobble them up, and for good reason.

Until lightning struck.

In late 2015, Google announced that its project with Twitter called AMP, an acronym that stands for Accelerated Mobile Page and is best known for its lightning bolt symbol, might become a ranking signal. The project, according to its site, is an open-source initiative aiming to “make the web better for all”. The project, it adds, “enables the creation of websites and ads that are consistently fast, beautiful and high-performing across devices and distribution platforms.”

In essence, it is a technology whose goal is to render mobile website content nearly instantly. It’s a stripped-down form of HTML—a “diet HTML”—that is super lightweight, creating faster (lightning speed, hence the symbol) loading pages, and already, it has changed the game.

Now, you might ask, why do you need this for your brand?

Because your content deserves to be seen

Allow us to borrow the words of the venerable Washington Post—the U.S. broadsheet that came to prominence as the whistleblower of a highly classified government study that changed the course of U.S. history—which is quoted as saying on The AMP Project website: “If our site takes a long time to load, it doesn’t matter how great our journalism is, some people will leave the page before they see what’s there.”

In the same manner, whether you are running a media site or an e-commerce site, no matter how great your content is, users (a.k.a. your potential clients) will never discover them if they leave before they even see the page, because they’ve been (understandably) bored waiting for your site to load. Remember, this is the mobile age. All other pages discussing content similar to yours are lurking in the web, every other search result as tempting as the other.

For increased traffic and conversion

Moreover, implementation of AMP on e-commerce websites reportedly fetched improvements in user engagement metrics: lowered bounce rates by 10%, increase in pages per session of 6%, and increase in session duration by 13%.

But here is the best part. There has reportedly been up to 100% increase in e-commerce conversions.

After all, imagine if your site is slow and users opt out instead of completing a purchase—that’s sales lost. Remember, in the digital age, moments are micro. Every second counts. Even one.

To reduce your budget for paid traffic channels

AMP traffic is included within the organic channel. By powering—AMP-lifying—this channel, you may eventually reduce your paid search spend.

As the goal of branded content is to drive traffic and familiarity, adding AMP into your mix can therefore contribute to driving more sales in the long term.

Mix is a crucial keyword here. AMP can be implemented by a web developer. But where it fits into your overall marketing strategy, this is where digital marketing expertise is needed.

As a general rule, you don’t have to AMPlify your entire website. You handpick only the content you want people to reach, like an hors d’oeuvre to get them in the mood for more.

But which pages need to load superfast, and which pages could make use of other technologies? Making AMP work does not end in activating the plugin on a CMS. The technology works when everything fits in a digital marketing strategy perfectly, and presented in a manner where it will be most effective.

This is where a digital marketing agency like us comes in, where we maximise the technology by crafting online marketing solutions. Contact us to discuss your AMP project. We won’t claim to compete with Google. We don’t play god, but we know how to play the game. In the digital age, that is enough to get ahead.

So let’s talk. We’d love to help out.