WordPress Mobile Search Results and Speed

If you have a website you know how important it is to have a mobile version of your site. If you have a WordPress mobile site you also know that speed can be a challenge if you have a lot of content and plugins. WordPress mobile sites can sometimes suffer from this and you may lose out on returning visitors to your site. Since you want a faster mobile site you may have heard of AMP.

What is AMP and why should I care?

If you haven’t heard already Google has implemented AMP pages to all of their global search results. Now what is AMP? AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open source project that aims to improve the user experience for mobile and tablet web users. With mobile web browsing on the rise user expectation of mobile content is that it should load fast and be easily accessible. Because of this publishers may lose out on readers or returning visitors to their site. Take a look at this video for more information on AMP.

What does this mean for my WordPress mobile site?

Well if you’re using WordPress.com you are already covered. Under Settings > General you will find the AMP section where you can customize your design for AMP or even disable it. If you are self hosting your WordPress site, that is a different story. Luckily there are already a number of AMP plugins you can use for your WordPress mobile website. You can find the WordPress AMP plugin here https://wordpress.org/plugins/amp/.

So do I need to have AMP to get my mobile site on Google?

The short answer for this is no. This will not change the search results, but sites that are using AMP will be labeled AMP’d in mobile search results, letting the user know that this site uses AMP and is compatible with their mobile device with high speed accessibility. And although it doesn’t change search results now, I personally wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere down the line it does impact your position in mobile search results.

Conclusion

Mobile really is proving to be the next big thing, as right now it pretty much is. It’s something we’ve been hearing for years and we have been seeing it come to fruition as the years go by. I think this is another example of why anyone who works with anything on the web should keep in mind that mobile has come, and is looking to be king. Learn more about AMP at the AMP Project Website https://www.ampproject.org/. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section. Anything I missed. Anything I got wrong. Or if you just want to say “HI!”