SEO is getting closer and closer to the world of social media and Google is pushing to offer its users a fresh, fast and engaging experience. One of the great novelties of summer 2020 is that of Web Stories, heirs of Amp Stories. Now you can create them easily thanks to the new official plugin released for WordPress.
What are Web Stories?
Web Stories are multimedia content in Amp format designed for mobile and distributed through various Google channels. These are narratives with a high visual impact that with just a few elements have to tell something. In some ways it resembles Snapchat and stories on Facebook and Instagram, but the distribution channels are those of Google. Web Stories represent a great opportunity for those who work on content and have interesting stories to tell.
Where Web Stories appear on Google
Web Stories are indexed on Google. Being in Amp format, they are designed for mobile, but they can also be indexed for desktop searches and can be an important source of traffic.
Web Stories in the Organic SERP
They currently appear in the classic SERP and image search. In the first case, the display is similar to that of any Amp result. In the second case, it is interesting to note how it integrates between the image results and especially in the new snippet with the image categories that Google has introduced in Serp and which it seems oriented to develop further.
In the United States, the integration of Web Stories into the grid format is being tested. The first arranges your content in a snippet that answers specific queries such as “What to do in New York” and allows you to choose from content from different publishers.
Le Web Stories in Google Discover
The experimentation of Web Stories is also involving Google Discover, so this format is attracting the interest of publishers. These Web Stories are about news and insights content that is suggested by Google based on users’ interests through the Discover feature. For now, it is active in the United States, India and Brazil. It is a carousel very similar to that of Instagram that allows you to scroll and delve into the most interesting topics.
The WordPress plugin to create Web Stories
Google has announced the release of a WordPress plugin (initially in beta). You can download it from GitHub. This plugin allows you to create Web Stories directly from the CMS through an editor. It is advisable to install it after updating WordPress to the latest version available.
How to Optimize Web Stories
We have seen that Web Stories are distributed through Google’s search engine and that they are characterized by more immediate and emotional content. For indexing, you need to apply a mix of SEO and social techniques. On a technical level, we must think that it is content designed for mobile and therefore we must try not to weigh down the loading speed of the page too much. Let’s look at some tips.
Contents
The user’s journey starts with a Google search or a push notification on Discover, then there is a click on an interesting piece of content and the use of it. We must therefore search for keywords exactly as we do for any article positioned organically or in the news. Relevance and search intent are key.
The visual impact is very important because it immediately attracts the user’s attention, but we must also take care of the storytelling that links the pages together, in order to decrease the bounce rate and increase the page views.
A web story can contain between 4 and 30 pages and can have links to in-depth pages on the same website or externally. Remember that this is a format designed for mobile and the outgoing links must also be mobile friendly.
On-site SEO
The SEO techniques are the same as for other web pages. It is also very important to include Web Stories in the sitemap in order to suggest a navigation path to Google’s crawlers and we take care of the incoming and outgoing links well, thinking from a user perspective and trying to offer relevant insights. We always remember to indicate the publisher’s name, author, and date because they add authority to the content.
Texts
Texts must be visible and legible. The minimum recommended size is 24px, but it can be expanded as long as it remains clearly visible on the screen. The text must stand out well from the background (video or image): we can take advantage of colors to increase the contrast, or highlight it.
Texts should only be a taste, so it is advisable to stay under 200 characters per page and not take up more than 10% of the space available for the story in its entirety.
Imagery
The visual impact is very important and the images are the heart of the Web Stories. Due to the nature of the channel, images should be full screen and not cropped and inserted as an additional element. The recommended resolution is 828 x 1,792 px.
Video
The content of Web Stories is very fast, so videos can be up to 15 seconds long. It’s a good idea to shoot your movie with a high-end mobile device and orient it vertically. The video must have a definition of 480p and a frame rate of 24 frames per second.
Animations
Animations allow you to give movement to the images: different effects such as fly-ins, rotations or fade-ins are possible. They can be very useful for spice up content, but we shouldn’t overuse them.
It should be an element that adds value to the content and is not distracting. A simple animation shouldn’t last more than 500 milliseconds, but the time can be expanded if it’s a background. You can also add different animations to multiple elements on the same page for a more impactful choral effect.
How to make money with Web Stories
Web Stories allow you to insert links to internal landing pages or affiliate links and therefore to use lead generation strategies, but also to use classic advertising formats through ads reminiscent of those of Instagram.
The format is called Story Ads and allows you to place a display advertisement on a single page that is displayed within the story. The advertising platforms used are Google Ad Manager and Google Display & Video 360, which is in beta for now.
Web Stories in your marketing strategy
Who should use Web Stories as part of your marketing strategy?
Online publishers or bloggers who publish daily news content should be the first to take an interest in Web Stories because they represent a growing source of traffic for cold content and especially for news that will soon have more chances to be indexed on Google Discover. The possibility of inserting advertising contracts is an additional source of income for news sites and bloggers.
Companies that produce a lot of content and use storytelling in their communication can also benefit from Web Stories. On the other hand, those who only have a showcase site and an occasionally updated Facebook page should first develop a structured communication plan and then think about whether it is appropriate to add this very useful tool as well.
Web Stories are very suitable for making emotions live, so it is possible to tell the story of a car, the characteristics of an electronic device, curiosities about a film or a book, the method of production of a pizza or an artisanal ice cream. They are also suitable for companies operating in tourism and promotion of the territory because they are able to tell and bring to life the beauty of a place.
