Steps to Set Up Facebook Instant Articles On WordPress Sites
If you are relying on just Google to provide your website with enough visitors then you’re not doing enough! Nowadays, social media has become one of the most incredibly powerful forces in the recent years and it is overtaking search referrals since many years already.
If you want to take the advantage of social media, it becomes quite significant for you to make your contents highly shareable and the most important stride that you ought to take for accomplishing such an objective is to create outstanding contents. But, this is not it! There are a couple of other approaches and tricks that you can opt for to attain more shares. Among such interesting way-outs, Facebook Instant Articles is one such excellent Facebook feature that was launched in 2015 to make web articles load in a much faster way for Facebook users and provide a better experience to the audience rather than reading articles on the publisher’s website. Moreover, instant articles might not be getting a buzz on Facebook feeds now, but it seems to be quite possible that they make this leap very near in the future.
So, it is quite essential for you to understand how to set up Facebook Instant Articles on the WordPress site of your business? Just read ahead and enlighten yourself! Step #1
Install the WordPress specific Instant Article Plugin So, you’ve decided to get started with Instant Articles? The first thing that you need to take care of is that you are having at least 5 articles on your site. You just have to go to Plugins, Add new, explore ‘instant articles, and finally install the official plugin. After the installation is done, activate it! You can just go over to Facebook now and sign up as an Instant Article creator. Then, just leave your website open on another tab in the Instant Article Settings page. Step# 2
Do the Sign up for Instant Articles Before you go for the sign up as an Instant Article Publisher you definitely need a Facebook page that you have an admin access to. If you want to monetize your content then you need to stick to the Facebook content guidelines and create an established presence for at least a month. Just take the following steps:
Visit instantarticles.fb.com and click on the ‘Sign up’ button. Opt for the Facebook Page that you want to use for Instant Articles. You’ll be then redirected to the Instant Articles publishing tool page. Now, don’t forget to authorize your site in such a way that Facebook can import articles by clicking on the link mentioned in the ‘Step 1’. Next, you would be given a code which you can paste into your plugin page ID settings. So, just go back to your WordPress dashboard and copy and paste it. Then save your changes.
Step # 3
Claim Your URL
Once you are done with these steps then you need to save your Page ID in the Plugin settings. Then go back to the Facebook publishing tools page and enter the URL of your website and press the ‘Claim URL’ button.
Once the installation of the Instant Article Plugin is done then you will get an Instant Article feed for your website which you can find at http://www.yoursite.com/feed/instant-articles. You just need to paste this into your Facebook settings page under the title of ‘Production RSS Feed’. Step #4
Submit your articles It is mandatory for you to have minimum five articles in your Production Library before you submit them for review. Moreover, the RSS feed will automatically import any new article that you create while you can import the existing ones by accessing each one in WordPress and finally clicking the update button. Step # 5
Set Up your configuration Now, you need to go to the Instant Article configuration on Facebook, simply scroll down to styles. Then click on ‘default’ to edit the default style. You can even create customized new styles. Then, you would be taken to the editor where you can make changes and preview the look of your article in the Facebook app. Step #6
Add an appealing logo After you are done with all kind of customization regarding styles and colors, the most important part step is to upload an attractive logo. Facebook won’t allow you to submit any Instant Article without adding a logo. Remember your logo should be a crystal clear PNG which is 690x132 pixels in size and it should display under the feature image of your article. After you are done with the upload then you would be able to see it in the preview. Step #7
Publish your articles When you are done with editing the style then just click the Save link present in the top right corner and at last close the editor. At the end, if you want to preview your articles before publishing then you must install the Facebook Pages Manager app on your iPhone or Android.
Next, click on ‘…’ an option which is present in the menu present at the bottom of the screen and scrolls down to find out the Instant Articles link. Step #8
Check out your Instant Articles You would be able to see the list of your Instant Articles under the ‘Production’ tab. You can just click each one and review. Step #9
Finally, Submit If you are satisfied with the look of your articles then you can simply go back to the configuration page on Facebook and click the ‘Submit for Review’ button. Facebook would review the quality of your articles within 3-5 days and revert back to you. Once you are approved then you can start publishing Instant Articles to your Facebook Page immediately. Summing Up
Facebook Instant Articles are really an excellent feature to experiment with! So, if you are a blogger or you’re into any kind of online business then add one more feather to the rate of your promotion with this concept like never before.