In this fast-paced era, people tend to consume more visual content than reading articles in order to take a complete glimpse of the whole subject. Even reports have also shown, people love watching unfoldable small visual content like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts etc. That’s the major reason why this type of content is most engaging.
So to conquer this audience, Google came up with the idea of tappable visual content similar to that available on various social media websites like Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. This tappable visual content is basically known by the name Story. You might have seen Facebook Stories, WhatsApp stories and Instagram stories. It’s basically the same concept, but on the web browser itself.
What are Google Web Stories?
Google Web Stories are basically immersive visually rich content in the form of tappable visuals(just like the Stories available on other Social Media platforms) on the web. They allow you to tap of swipe through the stories to consume the content. Unlike the social media apps, these Google Web stories are made available in the Google Search itself(on browsers/smartphones) or the Google Discover Feed on the Google app.
The ability to post these stories on our websites makes them stand out amongst the other story experiences. Also, we can include links, call-to-actions and Google Adsense to our web stories.
The immersive storytelling option helps in brand narration to the consumers so that they can understand the whole plot of the story through a few clicks. Since these web stories are owned by Google, we also get the opportunity to use Search Engine Optimization(SEO) techniques to our stories, in order to engage more audience and get more reach.
In short, Web stories are the most efficient way to bring organic traffic to your blog/website in 2022 and making a earning through them with ease. Either it be WordPress or Blogger, you can easily enable and use this functionality provided by Google.
Examples of some amazing Google Web Stories
Since web stories provide you endless freedom to show your creativity. You can narrate anything in any format whether it be videos, images, audios or other graphics. Here are some amazing web stories one should inspire from:
The InputMag’s Electric Motors Story is a beautiful blend of immersive-ness and responsiveness. The smart use of a video at the beginning and a super stream-lined font adds up to the viewers interest and provokes him to engage further with the story. Also this story is seemlessly responsive, thus it will work amazingly on any device at the perfect ratios.
Another eye-catching example can be of the Seeker’s. The way they blend science with creativity is breath-taking and powerfully engaging. The viewers can’t stop themselves from consuming the whole content.
At the end, why should we ignore our own Unveiling Tech’s immersive web story(actually the first one ever made). We narrated a whole blogpost in just 7-8 visual appealing graphics making it more eye-catching.
Do mention in the comments if you liked the web story.
How to create a Google Web Story in WordPress
In WordPress, the whole process gets simplified. As Google itself provides a WordPress plugin by the name of “Web Stories“, by which we can enable the Google Web Stories functionality on our WordPress website. This plugin not only enables us functionality but also provides a complete story designing interface where we can create web stories at ease. Then the only requirement left is of creativity and material(also a fast internet connection, because the process may get slow due to poor connection, loading time increase😑)
Just follow these steps to enable web stories on your website
- Go to Plugins > Add New. Search for Web Stories plugin by Google. Install and Activate it.
- You’ll notice that a Stories menu appeared in your WordPress dashboard. Head over to it.
- Now it will ask you to configure some settings for your Website’s Web Stories like Google Analytics ID, logo, and monetization options(also available in the web story settings menu)
- Now you are done with the setup, now just explore the various templates provided to you(all completely editable) or you can just start with fresh blank page. And show your creativity.
You can insert solid color backgrounds, Images, layouts, text, videos and shapes to your story.
If you have ever used Canva, then this might not be difficult to understand.
How to create a Google Web Story in Blogger(Blogspot)
Unlike WordPress, Blogger does not provides its users with any such predefined plugins to create web stories. You may need to redirect yourself to the Google’s Free Web Story Builder and Creator Platform known as makestories.io to create Web Stories. Apart from makestories.io, you can also use other alternatives also
- Product Stories: AMP Widgets – Convert pages in AMP, improve SEO and conversion rates. | Shopify App Store
- Visual Stories
- Ampstor | Free Web Story Builder
In this tutorial, we will use makestories.io, Since this is officially recommended by Google itself and is much more reliable than any other editor.
Follow the given steps to create your first Blogger Web story
- Go to makestories.io and signup
- Login into your account and you’ll see a dashboard like this.
- Click the Create New Story button or the Blue plus icon button in the left column.
- Give a Name to your Story of your choice and hit Continue. (You can also skip this step for now)
- Now the main editor dashboard will appear like this. Now show your creativity here.
After designing your story, hit the Publish button on the top right. And configure your Web story to appear on your website.
You just have to add the Publisher details, the Domain you are adding the Web Story to, and the Google Analytic Tracking ID and your Google Adsense Publisher ID for Monetization.
Now you are ready to go.
Best practices for Creating Google Web Stories
- Try to add a more Video content in your Web Story : Videos are much more engaging than images or text. So try to begin with adding a awesome video relating to your subject as the front page of your story. This improves storytelling and narrative aspects of the web story
- Use as less Text as possible in your story : reducing the character count and emphasizing only on main keywords can increase the engagement to a next level.
- Use Animations : Animations appeal consumers on a different level, but do not overdo it.
- Keep the Title short : Your maximum word limit for the Title should be strictly 90 characters
- Provide High-quality content : Bloggers know Content is the King
- Attaching suitable Meta-data : Proper meta-description, title and keywords etc must be used.
- Use searchable keywords so that it becomes easier for Google to find your Web Story.
- Keep the ratios in mind : Your text or images should not go out of bounds and should give a pleasing appeal to the viewers
- Also don’t forget to add your website’s link in your Web Story
All these points are itself mentioned in the Google Web Story Creation Guidelines. So make sure to Follow them to make your Web Story a success.
FAQs
It totally depends upon you. You can create a Web Story of only 1 page also, going upto 10 pages. But be sure to make it worth watching
All the popular web browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari etc are capable of running and creating Web Stories.
Yes. You can monetize your Web Stories and earn money from them
Yes. Infact for new websites, this is a great opportunity to increase your traffic/reach. Google Web Stories are the best way to rise to fame in 2022
No, you need to have your own domain
Yes they are visible in your sitemaps too.
