AMP stories, an extended feature of Accelerated Mobile Pages, is gradually transforming digital marketing by changing how web managers strategize for SEO. Traditionally, all that marketers cared about when developing content was how to impress computer users… use the right keywords and they were good to go. Today, the number of people searching on mobile devices has grown tremendously, forcing marketers back to the drawing board to strategize on how to leverage this new market. Besides that, mobile users are prioritizing speed and accuracy, necessitating video ads that are primarily optimized for mobile and whose load times falls under three seconds. That’s where AMP stories come in.
What Are AMP Stories?
AMP stories are basically video content that digital marketers use to sell their services/products to their prospective online customers, in a fun, catchy, and trendy approach. AMP, on the other hand, are accelerated mobile pages whose HTML is simplified in order to accelerate their load time on mobile devices. AMP stories are, therefore, short videos, moving images, and slideshow texts that are placed on search engine result pages and are optimized for accelerated mobile pages. They are similar to Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat Stories that have grown very popular on social media.
With AMP stories, Google will be offering its searchers a more fluid content that will load extremely fast and allow for quick reading and viewing. Searchers will also be able to swipe through the stories for easy navigability. Searchers will also be able to share them like in the case of news articles.
AMP stories were incepted in February 2018 with Google and its publishing partners joining forces to test the new feature. Although it is still too early to compare this feature with traditional digital marketing methodologies, we can already predict a huge transformation in the sector if the success of AMPs over the last couple years is anything to go by. AMP stories is a young feature and some advertisers have yet to embrace it, so we can only wait to see its full potential going forward.
Why Are AMP Stories Necessary?
From ancient times, no communication method beats storytelling in regard to speaking to the soul. People relate most to content that’s delivered to them via short, relevant stories. Early adapters to this new advertising feature stand a good chance of shaking off their online competition.
Let’s consider the facts:
- The fast loading AMP stories are exactly what the modern digital consumer needs. According to statistics, a single American internet user consumes more than 100,000 digital words every day. Isn’t that impressive? What’s more impressive, however, is the fact that of these words, the consumer wants an average of 92% of them to be presented in the form of stories.
- Further statistics show that the average US digital consumer views AMP stories to the end, unlike other ads which get canceled before they are even half complete. Viewing these stories for longer means that the ads therein has a higher chance of being consumed by the target customer.
- AMP stories speak to the viewer’s soul. If you are able to create interesting and highly relevant videos for your stories, you will rack up more and more conversions.
- Ads that take more than 10 seconds to load have no place in the fast-changing digital marketing world. Ads that load for more than 5 seconds make only about 10% conversions while 3 seconds attract less than 70% conversions. What about AMP stories? Due to their near-instant loading time, their chances of converting online users to clients is way above 95%. Prospective customers will choose you over the competitors because they translate speed to mean competence.
- Although Google denies favoring AMPs when ranking its page results, recent observations suggest that these pages are treated in a special way and are more likely to appear ahead of non-AMPs. What that means is that AMP stories increase your visibility online and if you are able to take advantage of this by improving your web design and the content therein, you will attract new leads.
AMP stories will, without a doubt, build your online reputation and significantly increase your online revenue. On your part, you must create stories that are cultivating, uplifting, engaging, and fun to view so as to get the best out of AMP stories. How will you achieve that? Sociality Squared can help! Tools like Ztorie can help to create the stories on your behalf too. Transform your digital marketing strategies and stay ahead of your competitors with AMP stories.