Introducing: AMP Stories and How to Optimize Them for SEO
March 18, 2020 | By Ilfusion Team
After two years of testing and its initial announcement, Google has finally rolled out Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Stories, a new way of virtual storytelling that could bring exciting opportunities for content marketers around the world.
What are AMP Stories and what benefits do they bring to businesses? How do you optimize it for SEO? We’ll find out more here.
What Are AMP Stories vs. Instagram Stories?
As the term suggests, AMP Stories are akin to Instagram Stories and Snapchat in terms of format: it’s mobile-focused, vertical in orientation, fullscreen, and with tappable interactions.
Image courtesy of Google via VentureBeat
However, the similarities end there.
Built on the AMP network, AMP stories are intended for more general-purpose content, like “Things to do in Texas.” As such, AMP Stories appear in a dedicated section in search engine results pages (SERPs) as a carousel of visual covers.
Whereas Instagram Stories and Snapchat content disappear after 24 hours, AMP Stories exist for as long as you want them kept on the web.
You can also link your AMP Story to just about any page on the website. Currently, however, AMP Stories are only available for travel-related content. Google is setting its sights to rolling out the new feature soon to other types of content, such as Google Maps, Twitter posts, YouTube videos, and more.
What Are the Benefits of AMP Stories to Businesses?
As mentioned, AMP Stories provide new avenues for marketers to bring more traffic to their content and consequently improve SEO rankings.
With its dynamic nature, AMP Stories can also boost engagement and highly influence conversions. In fact, marketers also have the option to run ad campaigns using AMP Stories.
How to Optimize AMP Stories for SEO?
1. Link relevant internal pages from your website
Linking to your website is possibly the most important component in optimizing your AMP Stories. The key thing here is to link your story to a relevant page from your website. For example, if your story is about your newest service offering, it makes more sense to link it to your Services page instead of your site’s homepage.
Where possible, you can also create dedicated landing pages for your AMP Stories. This is especially relevant if you decide to advertise using AMP Stories. For tips on how to make your landing pages more effective, refer to here: 5 Tips on How to Optimize Your Landing Pages to Convert More.
2. Include structured data to your content
Structured data plays a huge role in boosting the search visibility of your AMP Story. While AMP Stories automatically attaches metadata attributes to a story as a built-in feature, you must ensure that your story meets AMP’s metadata guidelines.
AMP also emphasized that the metadata attributes only act as supplements to structured data, and thus content creators should always ensure that structured data is added to all of their AMP pages and AMP Stories. For a primer on structured data, here’s a guide we created: How to Use Structured Data to Boost SEO.
3. Highlight specific content as page attachments
Enrich your story further by adding page attachments—these can be anything, from YouTube videos, Facebook posts, images, to audio and more. Doing so provides more detail about your story and helps you highlight specific content. Page attachments are revealed by swiping up or tapping the call-to-action button included in an AMP Story.
Here are instructions on how to add page attachments: AMP Story: Page Attachment.
Need Help with Your SEO Needs?
AMP Stories is still in its early stages, but it’s imperative for marketers to consider this as an additional part of your marketing strategy to get ahead of the game. If you want to learn more about AMP Stories, view AMP’s documentation here: Create Your First AMP Story.
If you need help with your SEO or if you’re interested in working with an experienced professional agency like Ilfusion for your digital marketing needs, give us a call at 888-420-5115, or send us an email at [email protected].
