The AMP Open Source Project has officially released a set of recommendations on how to optimize AMP Stories for search engines.
AMP Stories are like the stories you’ll find on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
They offer content publishers a way to deliver news and other information in a visually-rich mobile-focused format. However, Google can index and display AMP stories in Search, unlike other social media platform stories.
AMP stories are like regular web pages. Not only do they have a URL on your web server, but they are also linkable and can link out to other web pages.
That means you can optimize AMP stories for the search engine the same way you would do any regular web page.
A Software Engineer at Google, Flavio Palandri Antonelli explained:
“Do all the SEO things you would do for any other page on your website. If it helps rank your non-Story pages, it’ll probably help the Stories as well.”
Now you’re wondering:
How Can I Optimize AMP Stories For Google Search Results?
Outlined below are the SEO tactics that are specific to AMP Stories.
1. Link to AMP Stories
Internal linking is essential for any web page, and AMP Stories is no different. Publishers should link to AMP Stories from other applicable pages — whether it’s the homepage or category pages.
2. Attach Metadata to Your Stories
AMP Stories come with a built-in option to include metadata to the stories. That way, the search engine can take advantage of the metadata and other discovery features to provide maximum visibility.
3. Use the Same URL Format as Other Web Pages
You don’t need to indicate in the URL of a story that it’s an AMP story. Instead, use the same URL format as the other pages on your website.
4. Add Alt Text to Image Description
Like the regular image optimization for web posts, consider adding a meaningful alt text to your image descriptions.
5. Include Additional Information in Page Attachments
Antonelli recommends including additional information in the page attachments. The details could be in a classic article format alongside your story.
6. Provide Subtitles
Consider adding subtitles or captions for the videos in your Stories.
With that said, the SEO tactics for AMP stories outlined above are not comprehensive. As such, they should be used along with the standard SEO that you’re doing for your web pages.
Really loved reading the article!