What's in this article?
Organic search is a dynamic world, and if you want to stay ahead of the game and drive conversions, your approach to SEO and content marketing needs to be just as malleable.
At a time when more users are accessing the web from mobile every day, Google’s announcement that it’s rolling out Google AMP to its entire organic search results page later this year isn’t all that shocking. Still, it’s important.
This is big news, not only for those of us with an interest in mobile web development, SERPS, and SEO. It should also be on the radar of online businesses who depend on content and SEO to drive conversions.
Here’s what you need to know.
What Is AMP Again?
Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project was first launched back in February with the mission of “Instant. Everywhere.” articles that created a “better, faster mobile internet.” We first wrote about these stripped down versions of articles that could load up to 85% faster in May, when they appeared only in Google’s “Top Stories” carousel on mobile.
Back then we noted that the biggest adopters were “major journalistic outlets, such as the Guardian and the Washington Post.” That made sense when it was these types of digital publishers who benefited most from those carousel results.
However, now that AMP search results will be rolling out in organic SEO, the story’s changed. AMP site content that appears in the SERPs features a green lightning-bolt icon. Once more users get used to that signal of mobile friendliness and mobile speediness, mobile users may have a higher incentive to click on those search results.
Who Is Creating AMP Content
So far, hundreds of web content producers have started creating AMP site content. Here’s a sample from a list of several dozen North American content producers Google says are participating:
- 1-800-Flowers
- ABC News
- Business Insider
- Buzzfeed
- CBS News
- CNN
- Disney
- Entrepreneur
- Food Network
- Forbes
- Gawker
- Los Angeles Times
- MarketWatch
- MSNBC
- New York Daily News
- NFL
- The Atlantic
- The Huffington Post
- The New York Times
- The Verge
- The Wall Street Journal
- Time Inc.
- USA Today
- Vox
- Washington Post
As you can see, when AMP does roll out in organic search later this year, it will cover a number of business verticals — from entertainment and news to sports, finance, travel, e-commerce, tech and more.
Why AMP Could Matter a Lot
As we noted on the blog last month, most of the country’s top web content producers are owned by a handful of companies. You may have noticed that a good number of the content producers creating AMP content are also those same publishers sharing a robust content marketing strategy across their multiple web properties and taking up lots of real estate in the SERPs.
If your business blog, digital magazine, or static web page content competes with these players for readership, AMP could have an immediate effect. Long-term, more content producers are likely to begin creating AMP content meaning late adopters face the possibility of getting left behind.
What to Do Next to Win at Organic Search
As Search Engine Watch noted earlier this month, now is not the time to panic. Google still hasn’t even given a date for when AMP will officially launch for organic search. And as of yet, Google has insisted that:
Currently, AMP is not a mobile ranking factor.
However, it’s not clear if that will always be the case.
The basic factors of whether your business should implement AMP are still the same — your business model, business goals, human and budgetary resources, and how content factors into your business. What has changed though is the emphasis and adoption for this new Google feature.
It’s true that Google AMP presents a huge change for how many content producers will package content for mobile users — and that a change this big is worthy of some anxiety over the outcome.
However, the outcome has a lot to do with timing. Here, Google is giving everyone a heads up about Google AMP and what may evolve into a revolutionary way to digest content on the mobile web. That’s a slow-moving disaster at worst, and as any historian will tell you, humans are very experienced at turning slow-moving disasters into minor inconveniences. At best, it’s an opportunity to adapt and drive new business growth.
Want to discuss your content marketing needs and whether AMP is a right move for you? Call us at 313-338-9515 or email hello@kaleidico.com to learn how our full-service digital agency can help.