At the AMP conference in April 2019, Google announced that in the general Google search page,AMP Story will have its own exclusive section. This has also greatly increased the importance of Web Story (formerly known as AMP Story) for website traffic. This article discusses what Web Story is, its importance in SEO, tools and future prospects.
What is AMP?
AMP, whose full name is Accelerated Mobile Page, is a network architecture developed by Google to significantly improve website speed and user experience. When an AMP web page loads, there is often almost no noticeable delay.
This site is completely AMP-based. If readers search and enter this site on their mobile phones, they can clearly feel the speed advantage of AMP web pages.
What are Web Stories (AMP Stories)?
AMP Stories was renamed Web Stories in May 2020. Since the technical architecture behind it is AMP, and the early name was AMP Stories, you can still see some people calling it AMP Stories, but the correct official name is Web Stories.
Similar to the limited-time updates of Instagram and Facebook, web stories use a more visual way to deliver content while maintaining the advantage of speed. Many American publishing media have adopted similar technology.
Different from the actual dynamics of social media, Web Story (AMP Story) is a web page with its own URL, so search engines can crawl and index the content on it, and anyone can find Web Story through search or directly entering the URL in the browser.
Web Story (AMP Story) Example
- PC Games - Video Game Magazine introduces the best battle royale games
- CNN - Special topic on how to protect Antarctica
- USA Today - Introduction to Beyoncé
- National Geographic Magazine - Best Places to Travel in 2020
- [Chinese] Leo Burnett and The North Face’s Controversial SEO Strategy by Digital Engine
The importance of Web Story in search engine optimization
Web Story (AMP Story) was launched in February 2018has been launched, but at the AMP conference in April 2019, Google announced that it would incorporate Web Story into general search results. The website can reach searchers in another way, which also means that SEO will also have a new battlefield.
Web Story’s SEO performance can also be tracked through Google Search Console How
Web Story appears on search results
Web Story has been adopted by many American news or publishing industries. It can be seen in many places since its development. Google has also hinted many times that web story will appear in more and more places. After all, it is a very good way to present content that interacts with readers.
Chinese web stories are relatively rare, but mainly because the popularity is not high, the search results can still be seen, such as searching on GoogleLeo Burnett SEOwill find the web story I made.
The following are several places where web stories have appeared in search results. Like all search appearances, there is no guarantee where web stories will appear. As long as Google determines that such a content form is good for the user experience, it may appear.
1. General Web Story search results
Search for "Matrix turns 20", and the first result itself is CNN's series of reports on the 20th anniversary of The Matrix in the form of AMP Story.
2. Exclusive section for Visual Stories
Search for "Washington Post" and you can see that there is a "Visual Stories" area in the search results, which contains the Web Story pages of various Washington Posts.
3. Knowledge Graph Knowledge Graph
Search for "James Harden" and there is an AMP Story in the Knowledge Graph, which is an introduction to bearded men made by Google using algorithms to integrate information on the Internet.
4. Football game highlight editing
When searching for MLB games, Google also has the opportunity to present game reviews in the form of Web Story, so that users can quickly see the highlights of the game!
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5. Google Discover
Web Story may appear in inGoogle Discover. As shown in the picture below, you can see that the web story occupies a considerable space.
Plug-ins and tools for making Web Story
It is not impossible to carve a web story by hand, but it will be quite time-consuming and brain-consuming, so most of them still rely on tools to allow users to easily create beautiful web stories.
The author has only used the first two of the following tools. Some tools support more functions but have more bugs; some have fewer functions but are much more stable. Interested readers can try and compare by themselves:
Web Story
Just like AMP, Web Story is essentially HTML, but has a specific format and syntax. A Web Story is composed of several "Pages"; a Page is composed of several "Layers" superimposed, and a Layer contains various "Elements" required by the Layer.
Available elements and more technical details can be found in Developer Guide onamp.devfound.
Web Story Data Analysis
There are multiple "pages" in a Web Story, but the entire web story is a web page with the same URL. It's hard to see too much data with ordinary website analysis (for example: Which "page" has the highest bounce rate?).
The Google Analytics of AMP web pages is slightly different from that of ordinary web pages, so the data tracking method for Web Stories is more complicated. Those who are interested in research can refer to it.This guide。
AMP Story at AMP Conference 2019 full video
Experience
AMP has overcome quite a few problems from its earliest development to the present. Now in addition to being able toPlace ads、Use Signed Exchange to maintain the original domain name、even serves as the structure of an e-commerce website。
Officials have released many tools and are developing more tools to make the website "AMP" require less and less development resources. If your website does not need any gorgeous functions, WordPress can even use thisofficial plug-inachieves one-click AMP. The ultra-fast reading speed and the lightning symbol ⚡ on the search results can make the website outstanding in SEO performance.
Regarding this update of the AMP Story exclusive section, it is still in its early stages. Only travel-related search terms and the United States can be seen, but it will definitely be opened to more regions, languages, and fields in the future.
Although Google’s Chinese search does not yet have an exclusive section for AMP Story, the speed advantage and interactivity of AMP Story are still very interesting, especially for news, recipes, travel, food notes, etc., the format of AMP Story has great potential!
If you have any questions, thoughts, or suggestions after reading this article, please feel free to leave a message below for discussion~
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