The news was initially announced in a Developer’s blog post released this Tuesday. Google has released AMP stories, which are a mobile-focused format for delivering important news and information in a more mobile appealing visually rich tap-through stories for avid mobile readers.
Even though the concept has already been promoted by some of the world’s leading social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and SnapChat, it was never backed by the Search Engine King itself. This recently launched AMP Stories is a great addition to AMP Project for content publishers.
This adoption of the AMP format is going to contribute to increasing the speed of the mobile pages. It has helped increase 10% of website traffic and 20% in sales generation in the past for AMP websites.
Here’s what an AMP powered post is going to look like to your respective audience:
What are AMP Stories?
It is a feature launched by Google that enables publishers to create content just like Instagram stories. Only this time, these posts are designed keeping in mind the audience who eagerly use mobile apps.
According to a recent demographic published by Statista,
Almost 77% of app users spend their time on the top 3 apps on their smartphones.
This indicates that people spend most of their time on mobile apps and AMP is the best resolve to put content in front of them.
The Benefit of Launching AMP Stories on Your Website
Just like other web pages, brands and publishers can now host AMP story HTML on their websites. The best part about having AMP stories is that content publishers can publish content on their websites and then use the AMP version of their stories to drive views to their respective websites.
How does it happen? All thanks to stable discovery platforms.
A content discovery platform is a software recommendation platform which uses the recommender system tools. They optimize your video loading, improve caching and optimize delivery to users.
The best thing about the new Google AMP story is that it comes with countless customizations. You can choose standardized UI controls to add interesting user-interface elements. There are many different flexible layouts to choose from and you can even add up components for sharing and adding.
Some of the AMP Partners are CNN, Mic, Wired, The Washington Post, Mashable, and People.
Why Should One Consider Creating AMP Stories?
Certain stories are well expressed using images/videos while other stories are expressed with content. People who use mobile to surf the Internet come across many stories but value only a few.
As far as why should one consider create AMP Stories,
- AMP Stories are fast and they provide a smooth user experience which is less eye-straining for readers.
- AMP Stories create an immersive experience for readers so they expand and fill the screen visually.
- AMP Stories are a part of a larger ecosystem so they can be easily shared and embedded on the Internet.
How to Create an AMP Story?
AMP Stories are normally made up of individual layers made up basic HTML and AMP elements.
If you want to build your own AMP story, then it is necessary that you know how to code. Even though, Google has performed a whole lot of coding for you; and therefore, it provides you something we call as a boilerplate (sample file) which allows you to copy and edit your own story during the creation.
If you want to learn about the boilerplate method more, click here.
So before you start out with creating your own Google AMP Story, take a tour of Google’s in-depth tutorial on how to create multi-page stories and add visual effects. To master it, you will require:
- Basic knowledge of front-end coding (HTML, CSS, and JAVAScript)
- Basic knowledge of AMP’s core concepts
- A fast and reliable browser working to optimum conditions
- A good text editor to help you add texts of your choice.
Once, you have gathered relevant information on building up your educational foundation, it is now time that you begin with the tutorial for creating and running sample pages on amp projects.
Here’s a complete guide on GitHub that can take you down the amp project road.
What are Some of the Best Practices Which You Can Follow?
I believe you are now aware of how you can create AMP stories for your website. It is now time that you should understand some of the best practices which may allow you to create remarkable items.
Choose the Perfect Background Color
Background colors in your AMP story play a massive role in creating a good fallback user experience. When choosing a background color for your AMP story, make sure that you pick the dominant color. A good strong color that resonates with you, offers a smooth transition of images on the pages.
Make Sure the Text on AMP Stories is Readable
A font color that mismatches with the background color will send your story down the void. You certainly don’t want that to happen now, do you? One way to make your AMP Project successful is to pick the right colors in your font, add a gradient overlay in between texts and a contrasting image.
Make Your AMP Meaningful Without Audio
Even though, your AMP story will not include an audio, you still have to make sure that it does sound meaningful. It’s because users viewing AMP Stories will only take interest in your story if it offers something of value. In fact, sometimes only the captions will do the job while you sit back and relax.
Don’t Add Fluff, Use Minimal Text Approach
If you want to maximize the engagement and focus on each word which is being read and don’t add anything more than two sentences per page. If you add something more, you will risk the aesthetics.
Some Great Examples of Successful AMP Stories
The Washington Post AMP Story
The Wired AMP Story
The People Magazine AMP Story
Hey! You Can Even Advertise in Your AMP Story
One of the ways how people earn using the Internet are ads. When we talk about ads, there are basically two ad formats which are supported by AMP Story.
- There are single page ads with a pre-defined CTA button. They are ideal for direct visitors and these are basically post-click landing page.
- There are sponsored ads which works like a sponsored story. The aim of such ads is usually to drive traffic to it through a CTA URL button.
Another great thing about the AMP stories is that they have new bookend capabilities. These capabilities offer content publishers to add richer visual elements and appealing layouts to the story. You can even add CTA links, interesting text boxes, amazing portraits, landscapes and a lot more.
Here is an example how one can use ad in their AMP stories:
AMP Story format allow content publishers to create fully responsive and quick loading storytelling experience for audiences. The best thing about AMP Story is that these stories are open-source. It makes the stories capable of appearing and existing on websites and can be found in search results.
Apart from that, its immersive format is what leads it to a greater audience engagement.
