How important is AMP?

[dk7]

I have a client site with 200+ landing pages. We implemented AMP and many of the pages lost a lot of key elements including, sidebars, Calls to Action and footers. Our developer claims that we need to customize each of the 200+ pages for AMP to show those things (don't 100% believe him).

So the questions are:

a. How important is AMP? if we dump AMP will that hurt us? The site is already mobile friendly and clean, loads fast. 
b.Does it sound fishy that he says each page needs to be cusotomized to show sidebar, footer content, CTAs?

[mcncl]

Sidebars etc shouldn't be on AMP pages, as they are designed to present the user with the content on their mobile device. They are usually on a separate page, for example, url.com/page/amp, and shouldn't impact the desktop version of the website with regards to different content, sidebars etc.

AMP isn't currently a huge focus for many websites which are mobile friendly as AMP pages will not be shown preference in SERPs over mobile friendly ones simply for using AMP. If you have the option to add it then, of course, go ahead and do so. But if you are confident that you are mobile friendly and load quickly then I wouldn't panic too much over it.

[donsilvernail]

dk7,

My experience with amp is that it is not necessary for SEO unless you are writing time sensitive news articles or articles based on current events. These are the real amp pages that google is displaying right now. I  have not seen amp product pages or service pages from small businesses show up in the SERPS. Amp will remove all programming from the page so it will mostly be text based. Sidebars and other page elements are not usually displayed with AMP pages. The purpose of AMP is to increase the user experience on mobile devices. So these pages have basic text and some images.