There is no doubt that mobile device usage is on the rise. Whether we read the news, catch up with our family and friends, or shop online, the majority of us prefer using our smartphone or a tablet. That’s why it’s crucial that your website is mobile-ready, right from the moment when you create a blog.
A lot goes into ensuring your WordPress website works great on mobile devices. Choosing a responsive theme is a great start but sometimes, despite the responsive theme, your website loads slow on smartphones and tablets. You can also upgrade your WordPress hosting plan or opt for a new hosting company that will have features in place designed to help you speed up loading times.
But, one of the best ways to ensure your website loads fast and provides the best possible user experience on mobile devices is to make your WordPress site AMP-ready. We’ll cover how to do that in this article.
What is AMP Project?
AMP project stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages and it’s a concept designed by Google that aims to make pages load instantly on mobile devices. To do so, AMP restricts what you can do in HTML pages.
Most of the fancy design elements are stripped out, containing only the bare minimum of styling. All the important content is still present but bear in mind that ads might not work on the AMP version of your pages as well as the read more links.
However, these disadvantages are offset by the mere fact that AMP-enabled websites enjoy a boost in Google’s mobile results, as well as significantly faster loading times. And we all know that the faster your site loads, your readers and customers are more inclined to stick around and even buy from you.
How to Enable AMP on Your WordPress Website
Enabling AMP on your WordPress website involves a few steps which will describe here.
1. Install AMP plugin
The very first step is to install AMP plugin which is developed by Automattic. It’s freely available in the official repository and it will add the necessary support for AMP. Log in to your dashboard and click on Plugins > Add New. Search for AMP and then click on Install. Once the plugin is installed, activate it. Now your WordPress website is AMP ready, but we have two more steps to go through to ensure everything is working as intended.
2. Customize AMP page design
By default, all AMP pages look the same. While minimized styling is encouraged in order to improve the page loading times, it can also impact your brand. After all, how will your readers tell your article apart from your competitor’s? That’s where AMP for WP – Accelerated Mobile Pages plugin comes in. It is one of the easiest plugins that will allow you to style your AMP pages and make them more in tune with the rest of your brand.
Go back to plugins section of your website, search for the AMP for WP – Accelerated Mobile Pages plugin, install it, and activate it. After activating the plugin, you will be redirected to the Welcome tab under AMP where you can customize your site’s AMP version. You can specify your brand colors, upload a mobile version of your logo, enable social sharing buttons, customize post settings, and more.
3. Configure SEO & AMP
The last step in the process involves making sure the AMP version of your site is optimized for SEO as well. If you’re already using Yoast for SEO plugin, then this step will be easy. All you have to do is install Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP plugin. Once more, go back to Plugins > Add new and search for the above-mentioned plugin. Then install and activate it. Now, your website is not only AMP ready but also SEO optimized even on AMP pages.
It’s worth mentioning that Glue for Yoast SEO plugin allows you to enter some basic customization for your AMP pages. You can specify your colors and choose the default featured image for older articles. However, AMP for WP – Accelerated Mobile Pages plugin offers a lot more in terms of customization, which is why we’re recommending it in this tutorial.
Test Your AMP Pages
Now that your website is AMP ready, it’s time to test it and ensure everything works properly. To see how a particular AMP-enabled post looks like, simply append /amp at the end of the post’s URL. It will look something like this: http://www.yourblog.com/post-name/amp.
Once you’ve know how it will look, visit The AMP Validator and enter the URL of your post along with the /amp at the end. If everything is configured correctly, you will see a green check mark that signifies you passed the result.
Why AMP Matters?
At first glance, having an AMP-ready website might seem like a bad deal. If your website depends on ads, AMP seems like a bad idea. But if you pause for a moment and look at the big picture, you will quickly realize that AMP offers a lot more benefits. Your posts will load much faster on smartphones and tablets which means your readers will spend more time on your website.
And if you come up with a simple product or a service, having a faster website will help you turn those mobile readers into customers. Pair that with better search rankings and you can see how having an AMP-ready website can be beneficial to your revenue.
Final Thoughts
Enabling AMP on your WordPress website is an easy process that shouldn’t take you more than half an hour to set up. Simply by installing a few plugins, you can ensure your website loads fast on mobile devices as well as outranks your competitors. Use the tips mentioned in this article to provide a better user experience for your readers.
