Best practices for creating Google Web Stories

Google Web Stories is a feature of Google Search that allows users to create and share short animated videos in the form of Web Stories.

The user can add text, images, or video clips into the story before publishing it on their website in order to make it more interesting for other people who might be searching for similar topics.

Users are able to publish multiple versions of each story with different titles, descriptions, and tags. The first time I heard about this was when my friend told me he had created one and shared it on his Facebook account.

He said it got over 100 shares within just 24 hours! That’s pretty impressive, isn’t it? if you ask me because most of them were complete strangers, and it’s incredible to get unexpected viewers on your page and website.

That does not only help you to reach your target audience but also speed up the process of creating awareness about your product.

So basically, Web Stories are a good way to boost traffic on your website. But while creating those web stories, you should follow these best practices for creating web stories!

What are the best practices of creating Web Stories?

Let’s have a look on each of them in detail.

1. Design

• When creating online storytelling, the first thing to remember is that the design should be unique and appealing to both the content and the audience.
• Reduce the amount of text you use and avoid using too many text walls, which might fade your design skills.
• Animate your stories to bring them to life. Avoid animations that are distracting or repetitive because they can create weariness.
• Incorporate full bleed visuals into your stories to give readers a more immersive user experience.
• We advise video clips that are fewer than 15 seconds long each page, with a maximum of 60 seconds.
• Make sure speech is audible by using high-quality audio clips that are at least 5 seconds long along with a moderate pitch.
• Avoid using disorted and low resolution visuals and please be careful while resizing them

2. SEO

• The most important thing you can do is provide high-quality content material that is informative and engaging to your viewers.
• To keep your readers engaged, include a whole storyline and follow storytelling best
• In your story content, don’t use the noindex property, which prohibits Google from indexing the page and preventing it from displaying on Google.
• Add your Web Stories to your sitemap as well. The Index Coverage Report and Sitemaps Report in Search Console can be used to see if Google can discover your Web Stories.
• Make sure your Web Stories adhere to the AMP story metadata standards. Include meta tags, title, descriptions, structured data, OGP, Twitter card, and another markup that would ordinarily be seen on a web page.
• To optimize your story’s discoverability, we suggest adding alt text to your photographs.
• Web Stories should be integrated into your website by connecting to them from your home page or category pages, as appropriate.
• To assist viewers to comprehend your story, include captions in your video.
• To avoid overlapping with other information or flowing off the screen, avoid captions that are burned into the video.
• To create your Web Story, we recommend using semantic HTML.
• Additional material can be presented with your Web Story using AMP story page attachments.
• This might be handy for providing further information, deep dives, or forward excursions for the content in your Web Story.

3. Technical

• Web Stories must be AMP-compliant. Test your Story using the AMP Validator tool and repair any problems found to avoid invalid AMP issues.
• Make sure the picture connected to your poster portrait property is 640x853px and has a 3:4 aspect ratio.
• Make sure the logo image connected to your publisher logo property is 96×96 pixels with a 1:1 aspect ratio.
• To boost the discoverability of your content, including an original images in your meta tags.
• Avoid utilizing photos with burned-in text, as this could obscure your story’s title!

4. Storytelling

• Text and images are less engaging than video. Use as much video as feasible, with photos and text to fill up the gaps.
• Go far beyond the facts to find out more. Let us know what you think. Be the main character in your own story. Make it relatable to your audience.
• From one page to the next, build suspense in your storyline. By giving context and a narrative, you may help the user along the way.

5. Others

• Give Payoff for sticking with you to the end.
• Set visuals and animations to put things carefully in a style that fits your design.
• Separately animate your elements to keep your images lively.
• Make use of embeds. Embeds allow you to add more dimensions to your web story pages.
• Use a cover for your online content to draw in viewers. With a catchy title and engaging image, the cover should reflect what your business stands for.
• Your web story’s cover serves as a packaging element. It should be appealing on all levels.
  Ensure that everyone can see your story online.

Conclusion:

These are the best practices for Web Stories, which help you to build healthy yet competitive Web Stories.

If ever, you’re looking forward to en route how to build a healthy web story or how to build a Web Story, then please follow the article listed here.

It will surely help you to establish your product or service in an appealing way with an amazing digital presence on the open web.

Apart from all the above best practices, if you still find difficulties in creating the best Web Stories feel free to contact us.

Our team will be happy to assist you and ensure you that you’re on a right track in the process of making Web Stories beautifully.