A decade back, it just used to be about keywords, keywords, and keywords. Simply stuff the keywords all around the page and you’re good to go online.
But then suddenly, various important parameters start making buzzes. And one fine day, everyone started talking about the speed. The website speed, we are talking about! It was probably because Google issued a signal way back in 2010 that website speed is soon going to be an important consideration for ranking going forward.
And since then, every website owner is secretly wondering about the ways he can boost his website speed. But this was not the end. It was then in October 2015 that Google announced its AMP project and made everyone’s obsession reaching a peak with their website speed, further making sure that Accelerated Mobile Pages don’t go a miss.
WordPress has been one of the blessings as far as speed is concerned. The websites powered by WordPress are simplistically created and load faster when compared to other hefty platforms. It would be worth noticing how Google AMP and Facebook Instant articles behave with WordPress, and how the wonderful combination of these three would transform the internet.
Before we move into details, let’s understand what accelerated mobile pages are?
What is ‘Google AMP’?
Google has always been in the process of making the web a wonderful experience. Accelerated Mobile Pages is perhaps an approach towards making the web more mobile friendly. While the things were going just fine as far as the display is concerned, speed was still a problem. The web pages were displayed as per the screen size but the time in which they were rendered was still troublesome.
When others were suggesting to introduce ad blockers in order to boost the website speed on the mobile, Google came up with the concept of AMP. These are HTML pages that are built in accordance with some specific criteria. As a result, AMPs load 4 times faster and consume 10 times less data.
AMPs are built following a specific non-negotiable markup. Once that markup is satisfied, the developer has full liberty to include images, iFrames, ads, third party content, videos and other stuff on the page. Use of external stylesheets is to be avoided and use of inline CSS is strictly limited to 50kb.
What ‘Google AMP’ Mean For WordPress?
WordPress is one platform where AMP pages are just like a walk in the park. You can create and publish your website as you normally do. Google then caches the pages which are in strict accordance with AMP. The AMP content so cached would thus be linked to Google’s cached version. Pages that didn’t meet the AMP-standard requirements would still be connected to AMP pages, and thus this way you can link the readers back to your original site. AMP pages would receive priority on mobile devices. This means that there are higher chances that an AMP page ranks better on mobile devices. However, you don’t need to panic even if your website’s all pages are not AMP. You can still drive traffic to non-AMP pages by connecting your AMP pages with non-AMP pages. Connecting the AMP pages with non-AMP pages via hyperlinks, page links, navigation links and others is allowed. And thus you can serve your readers with ads, pop-ups and whatever you like on non-AMP pages – no questions asked.
Google AMP is simple, at least for WordPress. While it might be beyond the scope of small publishers to publish AMP-specific content, the AMP plugin for WordPress would keep you going. You can create the AMP version of all your posts easily with this plugin.
How to Integrate AMP with WordPress?
Things are simpler with WordPress as we have already said! And this is the reason that we highly recommend using WordPress for business website development.
Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, has introduced an AMP plugin which would enable Google AMP for your website. On enabling this plugin, all the post URLs of your website would end with the suffix “/amp/”. Thus, you can check the AMP version of any of your posts simply by adding this suffix at the end of your post’s URL.
Plugin is simple to setup and doesn’t require any high-end knowledge to configure it. The plugin uses the logo of your website. You can set this in the Theme Customizer of your Website, if you wish to! No compulsions at all.
Now that we are clear with accelerated Mobile Page, let’s move ahead with Facebook Instant Articles.
What are ‘Facebook Instant Articles’?
In the race of providing the best user experience, Facebook came up with the concept of Facebook Instant articles.
Facebook Instant articles have been available for the public use from 12th April 2015. This concept is an attempt to keep the users hooked up in the garden of Facebook. It helps the publishers by making them load their site quickly. It does this by loading articles within Facebook rather than in a web browser. The program thus works by barring the users’ redirect from Facebook and keeping them within Facebook. This is a business perspective Facebook might have introduced its Instant articles for.
The major benefit of Facebook instant articles from a publisher’s point of view is their quick loading time. These typical instant articles would be able to load around ten times faster as compared to the normal ones.
How to Integrate Facebook Instant Articles with WordPress?
WordPress has always been a favourite platform for bloggers and publishers alike. And this is the reason that WordPress has been given special treatment by Facebook. Facebook recently collaborated with the parent company of WordPress, Automattic, to deliver a seamless experience to Facebook instant articles and launched its own plugin to help users in the same.
If you too are a proud WordPress webmaster and are looking to integrate your website with Facebook Instant Article WordPress plugin, here are a few steps that you need to follow:
In order to use the WordPress plugin for instant articles, it is necessary that you have a Facebook page for your website.
You can download the plugin from GitHub repository. The plugin as of now is not available in WordPress plugin directory, but would be available soon in the near future.
Download the zip file from GitHub.
Install the downloaded file as you install other plugins.
Now under ‘go to this page’, click on ‘add a new app’.
From the pop-up that just appeared, click on ‘website’.
Create App thereafter and enter the URL of the website.
You can then generate App Id and App Secret. These two are necessary in order to use the plugin.
Review your app thus generated and make it live.
Now, head on to the settings and enter the recently generated App Id and App Secret.
You would be then asked to login into the Facebook page.
Next, simply connect your news feed with the Facebook page.
Click on next and this would configure the plugin with your website.
Add the logo and you’re done.
With the WordPress plugin for Facebook Instant Articles, it is actually very easy to integrate the two and further reap the benefits.
At The End of the Day…
Both Google AMP and Facebook Instant articles are undoubtedly new formats and are yet to undergo a major development before they could be used in full swing. One thing is, however, sure, this is going to change the way the mobile web was seen and perceived till date. With a growing number of mobile users, it is only obvious that proper steps are taken towards making the web a better experience.
It is thus imperative that publishers have a strong mobile strategy in order to stay ahead in the competition. And one of these strategies should revolve around WordPress. We’re not sure who is the clear winner among Google AMP and Facebook Instant Articles, one thing is obvious, WordPress is the clear winner. Sticking to WordPress would provide you with easy access to both of them. While it would be definitely difficult to integrate Facebook Instant articles and Accelerated Mobile Pages with other platforms, WordPress enables you to do this within a blink of an eye. The easily available plugins and a large community that it boasts of always prove to be beneficial for the webmasters. It would be only wonderful to know how the perfect combination of WordPress, Google AMP, and Facebook Instant Articles would transform the internet going forward. Any guesses?
What are your thoughts? Let us know in comments!
You're reading How ‘Google AMP’ & ‘Facebook Instant Articles’ Integration With WordPress Will Transform The Internet?, originally posted on Kikolani, authored and copyrighted by Joy Mali.
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