What Are Google AMP Stories?

Accelerated Mobile Page or AMP stories are a new feature of technology-supported through google that first emerged around 2018. AMP stories enable websites on google to display information in a captivating and entertaining way through clickable animations, videos, and images in the middle of a webpage. Its style and functionality are comparable to the stories seen on popular social media apps such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook.

These Google Web Stories were mainly seen across the mobile version of Google to maintain that fast-paced entertainment expected by mobile users when browsing the web. These stories can now also be seen on websites in computer browsers. Web stories are great for adding more user/website interactivity within a webpage and help make your website excitingly entertain its audience.

How Are They Used?

Google Web Stories are used to get information across to the website’s audience through a series of stunning interactive images played out like a presentation. The user moves through the contents of the story by clicking or tapping on the image. These are beneficial to the website because they allow websites to boost their traffic. The website traffic will most likely increase if a story is used correctly because they make the website stand out and capture the web user’s attention through its entertaining display. Those interested and enticed by the use of the website of the story will increase the chance of them spreading the website to those around them. Web stories are also a great way to guide the website's users through the information you are trying to communicate to them. Their easy and captivating display allows the user to stay in a generally small area within the webpage while the data changes at the tap of the finger or a click of the mouse. It is a straightforward and very effective way for audiences to consume information entertainingly easily.

A compelling web story strives for simplicity, ensures that user entertainment is the best possible, uses clear images to lure people in, and connects its information with its audience. It is the simplicity that attracts the user’s attention. Web Stories are mainly visual content. They make the content easily consumable, easy to understand, and entertaining. It gives the user a sense of control over the information by interacting with the knowledge and manipulating it directly. Web stories are a far more dynamic, engaging, and overall better experience than just plain text. This content format would be suitable for things such as how-to videos, Do it yourself projects, consuming news, and maybe even home cooking videos.

How Are They Made?

The making of a web story is a lot different and complex than the consumption of one. The general structure of a web story uses several pages of content, layers to organize that content. The last page, which is called the “Book End,” displays credits or related content. Like most things developed within a website, web stories are written in HTML code and styled in CSS code. Google gladly provides a tutorial on how to make a web story found here. A good look for a web story has a background color that matches the dominant color that appears in your account, has a font color that stands out, does not overwhelm the viewer with too much text, has a 9/16 image ratio, and has videos around 4MB in mp4 format.

Google suggests that stories should have high enough quality to be considered standalone content and that content should be displayed in landscape mode since most reports are viewed on mobile devices. Google mobile browsers are not the only ones who can view these AMP stories. AMP stories are supported on almost all modern browsers, including Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Opera, and even UC Browser.

Who Would Use Them?

Those who would most likely utilize Google AMP stories are looking to create a more dynamic and interactive website, usually within a mobile setting. Though AMP stories usually appear on google images, discover, search, and news, Google AMP stories can also be implemented into a website to add higher quality content that is interactive, thrilling, and easy to digest. They allow the website or web page to not only educate the viewer but ensure that they are entertained and interested in the rest of your website. A website with more interactivity and dynamics usually tends to keep people more engaged than displays text and pictures because the more dynamic and interactivity websites are simply more enjoyable.

Take a look at these two websites and judge for yourself. Decide whether the website here with an AMP story is more engaging than this one without an AMP story.

The Sweet as Honey website's benefit over the EarthSky website is that it captured the user’s attention more through its interactivity and attractive display. It was more dynamic, which allowed the viewer to become engaged easier. It was implementing an AMP story that allows their website to have better content that is easily digested and dynamics to keep them entertained. It allows for the website content to feel less like a lecture and more like a discovery.

Review

In 2018 a new Google featured was issued to mobile devices called Google stories or AMP stories. It was targeted towards the audience that uses mobile browsers and is designed to have interactive and dynamic information easily consumed by the audience through visual means such as images, videos, and animation. They are comprised of HTML code and styled through CSS and are embedded within the website’s HTML code. Using a Web Story within your website will make it stand out to audiences, lure and entertain users on the website, and increase the organic traffic flow towards the website.

They are very effective at communicating information to the consumer. Its frequent use of images and videos allows the user to digest the content that is being displayed readily. AMP stories are a great marketing tool and can be the critical difference between a thoroughly entertaining site and a blind website in the hands of a talented professional. AMP stories may seem like a task that a web developer would handle, but it would be better put into the hands of a web designer due to its use of images, animations, colors, and videos. Many services exist on the internet available to those who do not wish to make an AMP by themselves or believe that they do not withhold the necessary artistic skills to create a practical AMP. Some of these AMP building services include MakeStories, Visual Stories, and Amposter. These websites will offer to build AMP stories for your website or build a website with AMP stories embedded within them.

Overall, AMP stories are compelling when it comes to online marketing and reaching the targetted audience.