Things To Consider When Building An E-Commerce Website

From relying on mega online e-commerce websites like Amazon and E-Bay many companies are now focusing on building their own e-commerce sites to directly try and tap their customers. In the last couple of years, we’ve seen a significant rise in the number of websites that are selling products online and with good reason. If you have some products you’d like to sell, it’s better to focus on developing an e-commerce website from scratch. You’ll have more control over the products you sell, the customers you are targeting and you have greater control over the pricing of the products. But if you’ve decided to build a website or are thinking about getting a professional e-commerce website development team, here is a checklist that you should be aware of.

Guidelines for E-Commerce Website Development

1. Understand the customer and product
Don’t build a website simply because you want to have an online presence without the customer base of the product that will sell online. There are plenty of products that have a higher propensity to sell offline than through online sales to ensure that you’ve made the right choice in going ahead for an e-commerce website development. If you need additional advice you can always get in touch with the best website development company in your area.

2. Choosing the right platform
Once you’ve decided to come online the next question becomes which platform to use and there is plenty of e-commerce website platform to choose from. You can either go with Hybris, Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify or even consider building your website from scratch using HTML, Java, and CSS. What you need to keep in mind, especially if you have a sizeable user base is to make sure you have
– A functioning customer relationship management tool to handle all their requirements
– A payment gateway integration to make paying for your products simpler
– Strong backend which can support your frontend activities
– Mobile responsiveness for all pages

3. Website Hosting Provider
Once you’ve decided which platform you want to choose the next choice to be made is the hosting provider you will go with. Now you may think that all host provide the same services, but in our multiple years of experience in website development and web design, we’ve seen that some services, although priced identically, have vastly different service levels. If you need more details on hosting providers for your website please feel free to get in touch with us.

Here are some things to keep in mind while selecting your hosting provider
– Speed is of the essence. Google rewards sites that provide data to the customers faster with a better ranking
– Choose a hosting provider that will make sure your site is available to the customer at all times. There should be zero or very marginal downtimes
– Since you will be dealing a lot with sensitive customer data, privacy and security or a concern. Make sure you choose a hosting provider that keeps your site protected at all times
– In case there is any issue you want to make sure that your hosting provider is there to support you at all times. Choose a host that has good service staff to support you.
– You might be starting off small but you should be able to build your website as you go so scalability in terms of server size, space, and reliability are always important

4. Choosing what you want your customer to see
Another important aspect of an e-commerce website development project is to make sure you know exactly what pages you’ll be showing to your customers. How easy the website is to navigate? Are the images too cluttered? These may not seem like important factors when building an e-commerce website but they are all very relevant not only to your customer but to Google as well.

Conclusion
If you use e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify you might be able to develop an e-commerce website yourself, but without the help of professional reliable web development and design company, your website won’t have the much-needed fascination to the public. If you want someone to professionally build your e-commerce website, get in touch with us today.

Why Image Optimization Is Relevant For Google Search Rankings

Most websites nowadays have tens of thousands of images. Some as a means to impress their prospective customers and some as means to display what their products and services could look like. While having a lot of images can be used to attract customers they can also slow down your website. On the other hand, images can also be optimized to improve the SEO for your website. We’ll be taking a look at what image optimization is and why it matters for your website SEO and Google Search Rankings.

What Is Image Optimization?
Image optimization is the process by which an image with the right message you’re hoping to deliver is published on your website in the right dimensions (height and width) as well as the right size (file size). It is important to note than larges images will require more space on the server as long as taking more time to be delivered to the customer. The better the optimization the better the customer experience will be. Another step in image optimization is to insert the right image alt tags on all the images. We’ll look into why that’s relevant a little later.

Why Image Optimization Is Important For Your SEO?

1. Using Relevant Imagery
Using the right images in the right place is very important for your website SEO. Let’s get this out of the way very quickly so that we can focus on how to optimize images for your website. Image search is really important. More than 6 out of 10 customers do an image search at least once a day. On your website if you’re using an image of a monkey but describing a cat it does not make a lot of sense, does it? This may seem like common sense but when you’re talking about obscure concepts like hard work and imagination what kind of imagery you use is totally up to you.

2. Alt Tags
The most important bit about image optimization is probably using the right alt-tags in the images. Just like website pages have SEO titles and headlines to make it easier to search, images have alt-tags to be able to find them more easily. Now you have think it’ll be easy to fool Google and try and use your business keyword on your images, which is fair but don’t overdo it or you will be penalized.

3. Using The Right Linking
Images on your website can also be used to link to pages and other images. Use the linking feature on images to take your customer on a journey throughout your website. As you probably know the more time a customer spends on your website the higher Google ranks your website in search. If you have the correct images linking to the right pages to take your customer to exactly where he wants to go then you will kill two birds with one stone, by improving your ranking and improving your sales.

4. Use Proper File Names
Ensuring that you use proper file names on your images is just a way to ensure that you maintain good hygiene on your website. Using file names like DSC00192.jpg is not at all helpful either too Google or your customer. If the image is taking time to load he can see the filename and at least understand if it’s relevant to them. If not, they can move to a different image. Having a proper file name also helps a search engine saving it in a relevant repository.

Conclusion
Do you need help in optimizing the images on your site for better SEO scores? Get in touch via email or leave a comment below and we’ll get in touch with you immediately. We’ve helped a number of our clients improve their SEO rankings simply by optimizing the images best suited for their website. Get in touch today!

Facebook Is Reintroducing Facebook Search Ads.

Facebook has always been one of the most popular social media channels, however, in recent years its popularity has been on the wane especially with the younger audience. As a result, Facebook has been losing out on revenue. Although it has more than a billion dollar valuation Facebook still needs to try different methods to monetize the nearly 400 million daily visitors.

So what’s New for Facebook?
To be honest, Facebook is trying a new strategy that’s actually been tried by them once before. Facebook is reintroducing search ads to its platform. They first tried the concept of sponsored advertising in 2012. However, back then the experiment did not go down well with the users and was quickly called off.

Facebook Search Ad 2.0
In order to bump up its revenue, Facebook is reintroducing sponsored ads in its search. What this means is that every time you perform a search in Facebook you’ll see a list of paid ads before the organic search results. Similar to what you would see on Google.
For the time being the search ads concept is being run only in the US and Canada and is only visible for a certain set of advertisers and industries. Google wants to make sure that they implement the search ads correctly this time to avoid the mistakes they made during the last experiment.

IN the current state advertisers don’t have the ability to run ‘only’ search ads. The search ads have to run in conjunction with the regular news feed ads that are now the staple on Facebook. Although slightly limiting the aim is to be able to derive as much information for the benefit of advertisers and users as possible.
Also in its current form, these new search ads will only be visible on mobile and for select customers before hopefully being rolled out successfully.

Why Is Facebook Using Search Ads?
The main motive behind the search ads is undoubtedly to make another revenue stream for the company. While Instagram and other Facebook acquisitions have been showing tremendous growth in terms of revenue Facebook’s revenue itself is actually declining.
Another possible reason for re-introducing search ads is to provide advertisers with more options to reach out to the customers. Especially those further along in their customer journey. As per recent social media trends, consumers are no longer shying away from looking for products on social media as opposed to only using Google search.

Will Facebook Search Ads Compete With Google?
Everyone knows how Google is absolutely crushing the competition when it comes to Search Ads. In fact, Amazon is also making quite a few strides when it comes to search ad revenue. Facebook is not shying away from the competition and is actively looking towards gaining a foothold in the lucrative search ad industry.

Advertising revenue for the year 2018 was in excess of $33 billion. This is a large pie with several spaces for several companies to grab a share. Facebook believes that it is in a perfect position to take advantage of that fact. However, Facebook would want to do what’s best for both its advertisers as well as its consumers.

The Problems Facing Facebook Search Ads
Ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal users have been very hesitant to share their information with Facebook. Facebook already uses a lot of the information we provide it to provide us with a better experience while using their app.
Some consumer’s worry that Facebook will use their information more prevalently to help make their search ads more targeted. While Google already does this to some extent they’ve managed to limit their intrusion, or make it seem that way. Facebook does have an image problem that they need to deal with so ensuring they launch their search ads globally properly is a priority.

Conclusion
It’s pretty much a given that Facebook Search Ads will soon be a reality for all advertisers globally. Keeping that in mind advertisers all over the world should be prepared to use them effectively. What are your opinions and thoughts on Facebook Search Ads? Would you be willing to use them as an advertiser and would you like to see them as a consumer?

Web Development Trends to Follow In 2019

We’ve already stressed enough how important a website can be for your business. Meeting your business goals, reaching out to potential new customers and all the other benefits that come with a well-developed website. Web development companies always have to stay updated with the latest web development trends that take precedent each year. Today we’ll be looking at the top web development trends for 2019.

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Benefits of IoT in Mobile Application Development 2019

IoT is the most trending topic which can be considered in today’s world. The main reason for this is the connectivity level of the system which is operable to a large number of devices. It has enlarged its boundaries and entered into the fields like HealthCare, Retail, Smart Homes, Agriculture etc. And when it comes to connectivity smart mobiles and its apps are the first thing that comes into the mind.
Integrating the IoT in the mobile app in the account to control the multiple devices specifically wireless ones is the most useful and trending around the globe. There is a huge list of the advantage of using the IoT into the smartphone app, let’s discuss this in detail.

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Top Ranking Signals to Pay Attention In 2019

With Google changing its search algorithm so regularly we seem to have new ranking signal champions to root for every year. In 2014, it was site security (https), 2015 had your websites mobile responsive status, and 2016 shifted to more content driven ranking signals with Rank Brain. But what about 2019? What ranking signals should you focus on if you want to win at SEO and get your website to the top of Google search?

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Top 7 Social Media Trends For 2019

From being a means of staying in touch for friends Social Media has turned into a communication powerhouse for brands. However, with a low attention span, a multitude of options to choose from and other online distractions there is plenty to keep your target audience hooked. So how do you make sure that your communication signals are getting through to them? We’ve scoured the internet for data, spoken to plenty of digital marketing industry experts and witnessed the blooming of some of these strategies by digital behemoths to bring to you a collection of the top social media trends of 2019. Here’s everything you need to know about the best social media trends of 2019.

Key Social Media Trends Of 2019

1. Trust Building
With the backlash that followed the scam after scam that affected Facebook, the U.S. elections, and Cambridge Analytica it seemed like Facebook was almost over. As it is Facebook has lost some of its early prominences with users now spending more time on Instagram. Even though Facebook has more than 2 billion- active users on a monthly basis the whole picture isn’t as perfect.

Due to the users feeling their privacy being violated by social media and the slew of inaccurate information available online consumers are in a pickle as to what they should and should not believe. Especially when companies try and use marketing strategies that seem disingenuous. This puts their reputation on even shakier ground as customers are no longer willing to put up with fakery from brands.

There have been several instances of brands and big companies being called out on social media due to their false promises and lies. One of the biggest social media trends to look out for in 2019 and put into practice immediately is to try and build trust with your customers. To make them believe not just in your products and services but in your organization as a whole.

2. Using User Stories
Word of mouth was a very important part of the marketing gamut of a company. The practice is still in place but the methodology is vastly different than it was decades ago. While it is still important for people to talk about your product in a positive light, where they do the talking is as relevant as what they say.

Unlike previous generations, it does not take several days or weeks for user stories to reach thousands of ears. With the evolution of social media, live videos, Instagram stories, hashtags, and the like consumers now have access to word of mouth publicity in a matter of seconds.

Therefore, it has become extremely important for businesses to put out their own stories with the help of some loyal fans of the products. There are several ways in which companies are trying to get users to share their product stories. Some examples of these are running contests, using special hashtags, “share your memories with us” kind of experiences. These are all methods by which companies are trying to get good word of mouth publicity going out to willing buyers.

3. Augmented Reality Will Play A Bigger Role
Many companies including Facebook and Google are trying ways to incorporate augmented reality into their applications. Facebook has already bought a company focused on augmented reality and Google is working on its own projects to include augmented reality in its apps. Take Google Maps, for instance, one of their senior product managers admitted that it was hard to really know the direction we were supposed to turn while walking. To fix this problem they have decided to use a guide who will help us make all the right turns.

Pokemon Go is another example of seeing augmented reality really take off in the gaming world. Not only is it vastly popular, it is also highly addictive and people tend to spend hours playing the game. Brands, businesses need to figure out ways to make an entry into the augmented reality space.

You can already see the subtle entry of augmented reality in the form of those cute filters used on Instagram. What can brands do to make raise their awareness levels on these popular social media apps? Gamifying seems like the obvious choice but it isn’t always the right solution for every brand? Have you considered how you could use augmented reality to your brand’s benefit?

4. Quality vs Quantity
The age-old debate over quality vs quantity will never end. Depending on the niche you are in you will have to figure out what it is your consumers crave for. For most businesses quality of the content rather than pushing out mindless media is paying a lot of dividends. Even though you may not always the largest share of voice with your consumers with quality content you can be assured that you will always be at the top of their minds when it comes to your products or services.

Showing a creative spark while giving your consumers a good cause to back is one of the best things you can do moving into 2019 on social media. It is sure to be one of the hottest social media trends of 2019.

5. Growing Power Of Influencers
Social Media Influencers have taken their game up a notch in 2018 and we can only see this trend growing in popularity in 2019. Influencers are becoming very aware of their popularity and will do almost anything to stay relevant on social media. But they have also understood the price they need to pay. No longer can social media influencers be frivolous with their endorsements. They cannot afford to alienate their fan base.

Brands using social media influencers have gone one step ahead of the rest by adding a human persona to their brand. Even if there are multiple personalities endorsing a brand the image maintained by all of them will be surprisingly similar and one that works in conjunction with the brands own image. This is closely related to the next point of making the brand more human.

6. Humanizing The Brand
Podcasts, Webinars, Reddit AMA’s are a very popular way of making sure your brand has a human touch associated with it. Think about Tesla and how much Elon Musk is always at the forefront of their branding effort. So much so, in fact, that you can’t think about one without mentioning the other.

Look how personally involved Elon Musk is in the building of his own brand. It makes the consumers believe that the owner or a high-level executive is highly invested in the product or service which is why they are more likely to buy them. Of course, you have to make sure your product is worth it to begin with but that’s a completely different story.

7. Video Streaming
Another excellent social media trend to keep an eye on in 2019 is the growth of live videos. Its another aspect of humanizing the brand. Live videos give instant access to millions of people to your content. Since it’s live there is no scope for hiding the truth and even lesser scope to mess up.

Also unlike photos videos make you feel more like you were part of the process or event. Since most of the human experience comes through sight, live video streaming is a great way to get your prospective customers to love your products. Get them to engage more with your brand and also helps build more trust both ways.

Conclusion
Riding the social media wave is going to be really important in 2019 if you and your brands want to stay relevant. Before you can do all that you’ll need to study your audience and get familiar with the nitty gritties of the various social media channels. Or you could get a professional digital marketing company in Pune, like CodePlateau Technology Solutions to assist you with your digital marketing needs. If you need someone to get bigger than ever on social media, get in touch with us today.

5 Top Brand Building Strategies On Instagram

Here’s an astounding statistic, more than 500 million people log onto Instagram DAILY! You have short video content, visual content, and Instagram stories that people just can’t seem to get enough of. If you’re looking for a social media platform to build your brand and truly engage with your prospective customers, Instagram is probably your best choice. But there is a lot of competition out there so how do you get yourself noticed and build a brand on Instagram? By using the scientifically derived tips mentioned in this blog. Here are 9 amazing tips to help you build a brand on Instagram.

5 Pro Tips To Build Brand Awareness On Instagram

1. Separate Your Personal And Business Account
Unless you are a celebrity or social influencer you have no business being on your brands Instagram page. You have to set up a separate business account for your brand. Your business Instagram account should focus on your audience which will be vastly different than the audience for your personal photos.

You are after all trying to sell your product, aren’t you? So the focus of your business account on Instagram should be solely on your products or services.

Here are some tips on How To Set Up The Best Instagram Business Account
 i. Goal Setting
What do you hope to achieve from your Instagram account will best decide how you should set it up. Your account should always contain a link to your website to help drive traffic to it. If you are looking for engagement from your audience find out what they’re looking for and post relevant pictures or videos.

  ii. Include A Bio
A bio is an important bit of information for your consumers. Within a few words, your prospective customers should get a snapshot of what your brand is about, what your page is about and who you are as a brand. Customers often follow brands simply based on their bio so make sure its epic.

iii. Target Audience
It’s also essential to know who you’re building your account for. Finding the right target audience can be tricky but if you’ve been in business long enough you do have a rough idea of who buys your products and what they’re looking for from a marketing standpoint. Always remember the content you are posting is for them.

 iv. Competitor Analysis
Very often it’s your very own competitors that will give you the best ideas. It’s not always that they’re doing something better than you, in fact, you could even profit from their mistakes. See what they’re doing right and improve on it. See what they’ve gotten terribly wrong and avoid those pitfalls.

 v. Plan
Don’t have a haphazard posting schedule. Be consistent. Not only with what you post, but when you post. The best way to keep your audience hooked to your content is to get them addicted to it. Having a regular posting schedule is the best way to make this happen. If for some reason you’re not going to be able to post as per your schedule let your audience know. They’ll feel as though they’re a part of the process.

vi. Be Consistent
Not only do you have to be consistent in your posting schedule, but you also have to stay consistent when it comes to your design, style, and theme elements. Your persona on all social media platforms should remain consistent so as to be more welcoming to the customer.

 

2. Post-Pretty Pictures
Duh! But to get into a little bit more detail about this point think about your product. Not all products have the photographic appeal. You have to be extremely creative when it comes to selling your products. Fashion products are easy, but what about something like a UPS or a power generator? By being innovative in your product visuals you may be able to attract the attention of those customers not even actively looking to buy your product.

One thing you should definitely not do on your branded Instagram account is to try and hard sell to your customers. Remember that 90% of information processed is visual. If your customers just see you peddling your products without really giving them anything extra they’re not going to be following your page for long.

Focus on first providing something interesting for your prospective customers to look at and then focus on your product sales. If you’re creative enough you’ll find exciting ways to merge the two together so it seems like a seamless process.

Also, note that Instagram uses square frames for its photos. They’re usually in the 612×612 pixel range. To make your photos look professional and to make it seem like a lot of effort has gone into every little detail of every picture you post on Instagram you have to pay attention to the small details.

 

3. Be Discovered More Often
The major problem with Instagram is the competition you have to face not just from local brands, but your competitors all over the world. Here are some strategies to get more people to notice your brand, posts, and pictures:

 i. #Hashtags
Instagram feeds are not chronological. They use their own algorithm to show users pictures they feel are most relevant. What helps keep you relevant is to use the right hashtags in your posts. At least use 1 hashtags in all your post but not more than 5. You wouldn’t want your post to feel too salesy.

Another strategy is to use branded hashtags. This isn’t as easy as you might think. Companies have been marketing for decades to build brands but lately new start-ups have found it easier to brand their products by just using the right hashtags.

Do proper keyword research, be bold and fun, and keep it short.

ii. Use Influencers
While this shifts into the territory of affiliate marketing using Instagram influencers or ambassadors does go a long way in making your product more visible to a larger audience. You have to pick influencers who are connected to your industry. Don’t pick random people just because they have a high follower count. There needs to be a symbiotic relationship between the two.

iii. Share Customer Photos
People love their 15 minutes of fame. When you share a photo from one of your prospective customer (assuming they’re talking about your brand and in a good light) they’ll be bound to talk about it more. This will convince other people to start sharing photos with your brands and using your hashtags. If it works well this causes an avalanche effect with your brand almost blowing overnight.

It’s the best form of word of mouth marketing you can get online.

 

4. Spice Up Your Engagement
Compared to other social media platforms Instagram users tend to be a lot more vocal. The engagement rate is higher than that of Twitter as well as Facebook. Use these tips to Improve engagement on Instagram.

i. Write Stellar Captions
Everyone loves to give their opinion. Inviting people to share theirs is a sure fire way of getting some engagement on your brand account. Witty captions with puns, questions, sarcasm, also seem to get a lot of traction online. If you can write a caption that makes the user double take on the image there is nothing like it. “Spot The Error” is a caption that usually gets people’s attention.

ii. Use Contests
Nothing gets crowds excited like the chance of winning a contest. If you’re not seeing the right kind of followers then maybe get started with a contest and make sure to keep them coming. It keeps users hooked on the page and actively participating. However, if you don’t have enough followers then maybe a contest isn’t such a good idea. However, if you do, this is how to set up a perfect contest to build your brand on Instagram.

Make sure to have the terms and conditions clear while setting up the contest so as to not anger your fans.

Have an attractive prize which you know people would have to win. Post pictures of the prizes with your products. Double win for you.

Before picking the winner to try and build anticipation in your customers. Announce the winners publicly and make it grand.

iii. Respond To Comments
There is nothing better than a good comeback. If you’re able to get the crowd on your side through humor and fun with your witty retorts they’re sure to go viral and add value to your brand visibility.

 

5. Measure Success, Improvise and Innovate
The Instagram brand account provides you with a lot of data to analyze. Use the data wisely to find the right fans for your products. You also have the best times to post which garners the maximum number of views and engagement. If you feel like posting is eating into too much of your time get smart about it and use third party tools to help you schedule your posts.

See if you’ve met the goals you had set for your Instagram account. If you have, then figure out ways on how to improve on the statistics. If you’ve been unable to meet your goals find methods of improving your posts, captions, or strategies.

7 Tips To Get Started With AMP Stories For Your Business

We’ve all witnessed the boom of Snapchat stories. So much so that other popular social media applications were soon seen mimicking the feature. Although Snapchat was the first to introduce the feature to people and popularize it, it is actually Instagram that brings in the most users to the stories features. Now we’ve seen a lot of other applications try and attempt the stories feature to varying amounts of success such as Facebook which has seen the most disappointing turnout. Now the latest company to jump on the bandwagon is Google introducing the AMP stories.

As per Google AMP stories are an immersive visual content format that is fast and open, built specially for the users.

What Are AMP Stories?

It’s a feature built by Google similar to Instagram stories that help content creators build short-term, visual content for their viewers. However, unlike stories features in other apps, Google AMP stories will be featured in Google’s search results.

If you take into consideration that more than 75% of all user time is spent on their mobile phone you can clearly see why Google is pushing for mobile first content.  Since the whole concept of AMP was to push mobile first AMP will display an array of search results in the form of swipeable feeds. You can swipe right or left depending on whether you liked the story and would like to see more sources for the same information.

AMP stories also make it easier to share the information you’ve just received at lightning speeds. Google is hoping to capitalize on the format and draw users who are more accustomed to using other apps.

What Are The Components That Make AMP Stories?

Unlike traditional AMP content, you don’t have to rely merely on text anymore. You can include graphics, animation, videos and more. This is highly beneficial for content creators. AMP stories are made of 3 main components that you need to absolutely master if you want to rule the search engine game.

–    The story itself

–    The story page

–    The story grid layer

The story is the main content itself while the story page is the location when your content is based on. The grid layer contains all the elements that make up the page and the story.

So you must now be wondering how to get started with AMP stories?

 

7 Steps To Use AMP Stories On Your Website

  1. Code The Page

Now I’d like to say it’s easy for all companies to get started with posting AMP stories on their web pages but it isn’t as simple as that. Before you begin you need to code the regular pages of your website to AMP pages.  Use the following canonical tag on the original story

<link rel=”amphtml” href=”http://www.example.com/blog-post/amp/”>

If you want the entire AMP code set you can download it from the following link: https://github.com/Automattic/amp-wp

https://www.ampproject.org/docs/getting_started/create/basic_markup

Add the code to your WordPress page like you would for any other plug-in and you’re done with the first difficult step. In our opinion having a professional web design and development company in Pune to help you setup AMP pages will save you from a lot of future problems. You wouldn’t want the data on your website to suddenly disappear, do you?

  1. Run A Sample

Before you get started with the main content you need to check if all your settings are in order. Running a test project goes a long way to check this. For this, you’ll need a test server.

To be on the safer side of things you should use a secure layer with the test server to protect yourself from any data breaches. Once your local server has been set up, try using the link https://localhost:8000/article.html

Check the layout the design and if everything looks spot on you can move on to step number 3

  1. Create Cover Photos

Your stories can have multiple components but one single cover page. This cover photo should ideally represent what lies within the stories. To create a cover page, assign a unique ID for your cover to the first page:

<amp-story standalone>

<amp-story-page id=”cover”>

</amp-story-page>

</amp-story>

If you’ve worked with Photoshop at any point in your career you’ll know that cover photos need to be built using layers with each one built on top of the other.

The first layer will have <amp-story-grid-layer> element in the <amp-story-page>

There will be other attributes that you need to use to ensure conformity such as “fill”, “responsive”. Here is an example of what an ideal code will look like as provided by the AMP tutorials

<amp-story-page id=”cover”>

<amp-story-grid-layer template=”fill”>

<amp-img src=”cover.jpg”>

Width=”xx”, height=”xx”

Layout=”responsive”

</amp-img>

</amp-story-grid-layer>

</amp-story-page>

You can use multiple layers by adding the “vertical template” rather than the “fill template” as mentioned above.

  1. Additional Pages

Once you cover page is set up you can start to add other pages to your AMP stories.  You can find the code you will need to enter (based on which template you choose to use) on the AMP site. There are several other resources available to help you better code for AMP stories.

Of course, if you think you need professional help you can always get in touch with the best web development company in Pune.

  1. Glitz it Up with Animation

There are multiple animation elements you can use on your AMP stories to get the Wow! Factor. However, unlike social media apps, you can’t just drag and drop the elements in your AMP stories. You will need to code them in. There are plenty of animation presets already available like “fade-in” “fly-in-right”, “pulse”

  1. Close Out Story

You’ll need to effectively close out your story and provide your consumers with additional links from your content or related content. This last screen is known as the “bookend”.

  1. Validate Your AMP File

Before you upload the pages you will need to validate them using the Chrome Devtools Console. Remember if AMP pages are not validated they are not considered as AMP and do not give you any advantages. There are 2 methods of validating AMP files the other being using the AMP validator browser extension.

 

Why Should Businesses Use AMP Stories?

The golden rule of any business is to stay ahead of the competition. AMP stories are the next big wave to give you an edge over the competition. Also, it is now known that users are more accustomed to seeing short-form visual content which can be seen by how much more popular online streaming platforms have become. Good storytelling leads to better attention-grabbing of the users.

Using Stories To Push Products:

Who says that traditional marketing metric cannot follow good storytelling guidelines? In fact, 92% of consumers surveyed by the SEO-Journal responded that they wanted their advertisement to tell a story rather than just hit them with facts.

Reducing Page Load Times

Speed is good. The faster you are able to deliver the right content to your consumers the better. They’ll be invested in the conversation and look forward to it more. This undoubtedly leads to a lower bounce rate, higher conversion rates and not to mention you’ll also receive a slight boost in rankings courtesy Google. But that’s only if you work with the right web development companies in Pune like CodePlateau who are accustomed to delivering AMP pages to their customer.

Getting More Creative

Because of the way AMP pages are built you have more opportunities to experiment with creative styles. The design is an important element when it comes to potential customers picking your product or service over the competition.

With AMP pages you can add a whole lot of features and that can add a certain oomph to your content. While you’re at it you should also push your viewers to your AMP content until they become more accustomed to it. Links, buttons to promote your AMP stories in your content won’t hurt.

Better Rankings

As I’ve mentioned before AMP pages help with search engine optimization. If your website ranks well on all parameters important to Google it’s obvious they’ll be willing to give you a push up the results.

 

Conclusion

In this fast-paced world, your competitive advantage lasts only for a few months, maybe even less depending on the rate of technological innovation. If you want to get ahead of the competition you need to try and grab every advantage you can. Getting the best web development company in Pune, CodePlateau, to help you build and design attention-grabbing AMP stories and pages for your website is the right move to make right now. If you need more information about AMP stories or need some assistance in your web development needs, get in touch with us today.

Common Web Design Mistakes to Avoid

Web Design Mistakes To Avoid

A lot of companies are using the internet marketing model for their businesses and in this day and age it makes complete sense. With the rapidly evolving internet speeds and the thirst for knowledge building among the youth. They want to use the internet for work as much as they do for pleasure. Continue reading