This POV, written by CMI/Compas thought leader, explains what Google's AMP Project is how this impacts pharma.

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POINT OF
VIEW
Google search services, which now resides under
the parent company Alphabet has made a
history of being at the forefront of technology,
user-experience and web visibility for brands
looking to get their information in front of the
right eyes. Sometimes, however, its best ideas
are simply copycats with a twist.
The search giant has recently introduced its
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project. As its
name implies, AMP is intended to speed up the
delivery of mobile web pages. This will allow
Google to pre-render articles that match a given
query, allowing for a faster delivery of content.
SEO best practices already tell us that many
users will abandon a page taking 2 seconds or
longer to load. As the data market leader for
many of these best practices, Google takes page-
load speed very seriously.
This has significant impact – nearly half of all
web searches come through mobile devices.
More importantly, HCPs need this information
quickly and are continuing to increase their
mobile usage. According to Media Vitals, our
proprietary survey tool, 65% of HCPs use online
search through their smartphones and tablets to
drive prescribing decisions. In an effort to create
the fastest mobile browsing experience possible,
Google has introduced new standards to allow
Although they’d never tell you, the AMP project
is, at least partly, a response to the success of
Facebook’s Instant Articles and Apple News. It is
a logical next step in Google’s aim to provide
answers to questions with as little work as
possible on behalf of its searchers.
AMP positions featured mobile stories at the top
of results for relevant queries. Take the example
of a query for “news”. Google has partnered with
over 30 publishing partners, at this time, to
populate articles into a carousel that is intended
to give you today’s news.
Google Introduced AMP Project to
Speed up Mobile Delivery
Introduction
What is the AMP Project?
these searches to receive the most expedited
transition possible.

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To set the groundwork for AMP’s success, Google
created a series of open-source HTML templates,
which are posted on Github. Its 30+ current
partners use and manipulate the templates to
provide a stripped down version of the website,
from a style and code perspective. Fortunately,
any brand can do the same thing. In exchange for
the more-easily loaded webpage, Google offers
premium placement that pushes everything
outside of the mobile carousel below-the-fold.
For websites built on Wordpress themes, simply
download the AMP plugin and install. For
alternative CMS platforms, you’ll have to use
the GitHub framework to design your webpages
and append “/amp/” to each page in order to
comply.
In addition to joining the carousel of results, the
AMP project also increases the importance of
building your content profile with AMP-partner
publishers. It’s likely that many of pharma’s top
publishing partners are already planning how to
get this live. If you’re planning custom content
programs for the upcoming year, think of how
to get some of that content to appear on more
high-volume searches where AMP results may
be implemented. Chances are that major
medical publishers will have the clout to rank
much more quickly than your brand site, even if
both are AMP-enabled. Content marketing is
often a recommended part of your media mix,
and this adds even more reason to use it.
How will this affect the way we look
at SEO….and how do I join in?
None of the rationale for AMP is necessarily
new… simply the implementation. Google has
been talking about the importance of site speed
since 2009. The increasing dominance of mobile
as the medium of choice has, however, led
Google to make some big decisions. Think about
it, if you use Google on your mobile phone to find
an answer to a question, but all of the websites
are loading slowly, you’re likely to blame Google
(even if the real culprit is a snail’s pace
connection). However, if you’ve already gotten to
Google for your answer and a list of potential
answers to your question are already pre-loaded,
Google looks like a hero. You get your information
faster and, in turn are more likely to continue to
come back to Google for answers in the future.
The biggest effect of this is the shifting down of
mobile results, in favor of the AMP carousel. At
this time, results are generally being populated by
the likes of NY Times, Mashable and Buzzfeed,
however, implementation of the AMP approved
formatting is surprisingly easy.
“The increasing
dominance of mobile
as the medium of
choice has led Google
to make some big
decisions.”

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Analysts:
Michael Ranalli
Associate Director, Search Engine Marketing
Communications Media, Inc.
Although this is a new program for Google, its
overall acceptance by Facebook, Apple and the
consumers that use these programs for news is
good reason to believe that AMP is here to stay.
This is an easy win, particularly for brands that
haven’t fully invested in mobile at this point.
The stripped down styling of the webpage offers
a clean, fast and possibly well-positioned
opportunity to appear in mobile results. At this
time, the biggest wins are likely to be for those
brands who can rank for high-volume keywords,
like “diabetes,” “multiple sclerosis” or “breast
cancer,” whether for their own websites or on a
publishing partner. It is important to keep in
mind that this is only the first step for Google.
Although the project isn’t focusing on more
long-tail opportunity, the chronology of projects
like “Instant Answers” and “Knowledge Graph”
tell us that these projects rarely ever do.
AMP may be in its infancy, but it’s
not going anywhere.
The good news is that you don’t have to figure
out all of these answers alone. Reach out to the
CMI search engine optimization team to discuss
how this may align with your brand’s goals and
objectives, as well as the best way to move
forward.