What are Google Web Stories?
Web Stories are an extraordinary visual storytelling format that can help you make your Google results irresistible.
Inspired by the stories available on various social media, Google Web Stories offer users a fully immersive, swipe-based, full-screen experience. This innovative visual format allows you to combine text, audio, video, images and animations to create a slideshow to explore a specific theme from a multisensory perspective.
Web Stories (formerly AMP Stories) are a fast-loading technology designed for mobile devices and based on full-touch interactions. It’s an accessible (open web) format, and anyone can use them on their website to build engaging and inspiring visual narratives. In addition, sharing Web Stories is effortless, really affordable for everyone!
Where do Web Stories show up on Google?
Let’s focus now on SEO. One of the most exciting aspects of Web Stories is, in fact, the potential for organic visibility on mobile.
Web Stories can appear:
- Google Search results;
- Google Images results;
- Google Discover;
- Google App.
Why are Web Stories useful to your content marketing and SEO strategy?
Here’s how Andrea Volpini, our CEO, answered this question:
“For your best-positioned articles, Web Stories are like trailers for movies: a thoughtful selection of “shots” through which to inspire your readers and entice them to dig deeper. Google will trust your Web Story because your article (or your web page) on that topic has already been assigned a good ranking. Also, there is no risk of cannibalization, if anything, the opposite. The Web Story is connected with the article, and Google does a fantastic job contributing to both”.
Andrea Volpini (source)
In other words, using Google Web Stories provides more exposure for your site and your articles. They can be shown in different positions on Google: as a rich snippet in SERPs, as a Web Story Grid, on Google Discover, and among Google image results.
The benefits of this format don’t end there. Let’s analyze them together.
Content Ownership
Unlike social media stories, Web Stories are embedded on your site and are owned by you. This gives you more freedom and control over your content.
User Engagement
With Web Stories, you can create a truly interactive and immersive experience to attract and engage your audience on your website.
No Time Limit
Unlike social media stories (and certain Google content, such as Google My Business posts), Web Stories have no time limit or expiration date. Once published on your site, they will stay there as long as you want 🙂
Monetization
Google has made available new ads formats based on web stories. Have fun trying them out!
External Links
Web Stories can receive incoming links from any site and can, in turn, contain a link to any web page.
KPIs
Web Stories support Google Analytics and all types of Google tracking.
Live Stories
With the “live stories” attribute, you can notify your users that you have added a new Web Story. Very useful for bloggers and media people.
How to create your first Web Story
Are you eager to jump into the fray and work on your first Web Story?
Awesome! Let’s take a look at how to do it.
Depending on your skills, you can choose one of two ways:
- If you’re not a developer and want to focus primarily on content and design, you can use a third-party tool like MakeStories or Newsroom AI. If you use WordPress, Google’s Web Stories Editor is a great choice 😉
- On the other hand, if you are a coding expert, you can do it yourself by following the guidelines and tutorials on the AMP website.
SEO tips for your Web Stories: what Google wants
Through Web Stories, Google wants to provide users with interactive and engaging content that can increasingly “position” the search engine as a source of inspiration and discovery, in a push and no longer (only) pull perspective.
Google Stories tickle users’ curiosity, so for Google, they represent the perfect bait to capture readers through interest-based content.
10 examples of inspiring Web Stories
Watch this video to discover 10 captivating Web Stories selected directly by Mr Google!
Google’s technical guidelines for Web Stories
To appear on Google, Web Stories must follow a set of guidelines provided by the search engine itself. Here are some of the requirements to keep in mind to help your visual content succeed in SERPs:
1) Completeness
Make sure that your Web Stories are genuinely complete, that they tell a story in its entirety and that they are not overly commercial. So avoid building Web Stories where users have to click on links to get essential information or Stories that contain more than one external link or attachment per page.
2) Affiliation
If you use affiliate links in your Web Stories, our suggestion is not to exaggerate: limit yourself to a single link per Story. Also, be careful to respect the Quality Guidelines for affiliate programs.
3) Story Length
We recommend that you create Web Stories between 5 and 30 pages. Even better if they are between 10 and 20 pages 😁
4) Title length
Use short titles! Our suggestion? Stay under 40 characters.
5) Text
Write less than 200 characters on each page. Focus each slide on a single idea, like a social post.
6) Video
Videos can give movement to your Story, but be careful, don’t overdo it! The ideal would be a video of 15 seconds per page (and never more than 60 seconds). PS. don’t forget the caption.
Our experience with Web Stories
Last year we published our first Web Story on one of our articles… and it was the biggest hit of the year! The page saw a spike in organic traffic of +540%.
If you want to learn more, we recommend reading the article on creating an SEO-friendly Web Story and our other successful experiences boosting organic traffic using this format.
And now… get to work!
Google gives a lot of exposure to Web Stories, so it’s time to start experimenting with this format.
Web Stories can create a bridge between Google and your web pages. Try building your Web Stories with links and call-to-actions, and drive new interested users to the content that matters to your business!
