Home › Digital Marketing › Optimizing Content: Pros and Cons of Google AMP and Facebook Instant Articles

Optimizing Content: Pros and Cons of Google AMP and Facebook Instant Articles

Posted on September 21, 2016 by 4 Step Studio — Leave a comment

Optimizing Content

Content is king, and you do your best to generate quality articles and posts for your clients and followers to read and make use of. It should only follow that when Facebook or Google make changes, you pivot and roll with the changes. Recently, some big changes have been Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) and Facebook Instant Articles (FBIA), and this late in the game there are not a lot of people taking advantage of what AMP and FBIA have to offer. There are pros and cons to both formats, but not taking advantage of these important tools could have a negative impact on your stats and your conversion rate.

 

Pros for Google AMP Optimization

  • Your content appears atop mobile search results – not desktop – in a strip of ten articles that have been optimized for AMP. Users swipe the strip to see the articles and tap go navigate.
 Cons for Google AMP Optimization

  • No pinch or zoom on content.
  • Intrusive “return to results” bar tempts browsers back to their results.
  • Oriented to text-based content – though posing videos to YouTube will help.
  • No ad revenues.

 

Pros for Facebook Instant Articles Optimization

  • This is specifically targeted at Facebook app users. A small lightning bolt icon shows the user that the content is optimized and will load lightning fast so that they can view it. Also promotes your site by allowing you to link to more articles.
  • Publishers who sell and serve their own ads get 100 percent of the revenue generated by the ads. If Facebook sells and serves the ads, they take 30 percent.
 Cons for Facebook Instant Articles Optimization

  • Pretty much the same with the static sizes that can’t be enlarged or minimized.
  • Your content is displayed with other content and other ads.
  • Your content does not appear in search results and there is no automatic posting to your Facebook page.

Consider if you have other venues that could nip some cons off the list without using AMP or FBIA. Otherwise, consider doing both. Optimizing for mobile and for Google’s 800-pound gorilla search engine, and for Facebook’s 800-pound gorilla user base can hardly be said to be a waste of time and effort. Conversions from both should be considered, and your content created with both searchers and Facebook users in mind. Remember, they are not necessarily the same audiences.

With mobile becoming a dominant force in marketing, using every tool you can – even if it’s just to evaluate an effect – can make or break your business’ online presence. Pew Research has numbers – with 64 percent of American adults owning a smartphone, and 62 percent of them using them for searches such as looking for a job and submitting an application, finding information about a health condition, and finding services and information they need. WordPress offers modules to help you do it easily, and optimized content increases traffic, engagement, and shares. Optimize and get those clickers into your funnel!

 

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About

4 Step Studio is an online marketing agency that specializes in website design and redesign, SEO, social media and more. Our team of experts focuses on helping small business get found online, while educating them on what will make them successful in the digital world. To learn more about what we can do for you, visit our website at www.4StepStudio.com

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