Google Web Stories
Google Web Stories are a web-based version of the popular “Stories” format that blends video, audio, images, animation, and text to create a dynamic consumption experience.
They are a mobile-focused format for publishers to deliver news and other content (pictures, recipes, animals, food, traveling, etc.), visually allowing people to tap/swipe through “stories” to navigate content.
Do they help?
The answer is YES. Web stories are helpful to meet the widest audiences. Usually, these are short and sweet. So, there is a huge possibility to get good views. For instance, if a company advertises its product via Web Stories. It can potentially go viral quickly. More views mean more customers. Hence, Web Stories help people.
Can people earn by creating Google Web Stories?
Creators can earn a nice amount by displaying ads in their stories. It is the primary source of income for creators.
5. How are they created
People can easily create stories by using Web Stories on Google. This webpage has step-by-step instructions to create stories. On the top right of the page, we found a button saying, “Create a Story” in the blue box. By clicking that button, it gives us different tools to customize our story the way we like. The main tools are “News Room Al,” “MakeStories,” “World Press Plugin,” and “Developer Docs.” Stories can be viewed/created on both desktops as well as phones. Here is the step-by-step tutorial for creating an incredible Web Story.
Skill required
It would be best if you were expert enough to seek the attention of your audience. Your content should be something that your audience finds:
- meaningful,
- entertaining,
- funny,
- Teachable or tips,
- Informational.
Getting Started with Web Stories
Publishing Web Stories
There are different ways to publish a web story. Here are the steps to publish a story on MakeStories beta. Once the account is activated, the story is created and customized. Publishing includes four main steps:
- Setting up publisher details. By filling out the following information in the picture below, we can complete the first step of publishing.
2. Set up SEO and Meta tags. This step is not too long.
3. Story validation. For this step, we must make sure that you have met the requirements.
4. Finally, setting up advertising. These two steps further break into more steps. In Analytic setup, we must fill out GA Tracking ID, Facebook App ID, Twitter App IC, or Fb Pixel. Then, we must choose from the dropdown list for the advertising setup. Once it is completed, we are good to go!
Advantages
- It helps to increase the audience.
- Make an ordinary person famous. They will get new fans all across the world by sitting in one place.
- Excellent source of entertainment.
- We can get information/news.
- We can discover new foods, cultures, technologies, creatures, animals, fashion, and many more beyond our imaginations.
- A platform for showcasing the brand.
- New content will engage customers.
- Increase the speed of content load.
Disadvantages
- It is easy to steal anyone’s content.
- We do not own our content.
- Technical requirements are required to run.
- We must depend on Google's AB testing for search results.
Example of how to get a web story to rank.
Mike Fishbein shared his journey, which started by publishing on Medium. His stories barely got 100 views three years ago. He published 81 stories, gained 6,600 followers, and at one point, he had over 20,000 views per month. He started finding ways to attract readers from search engines like Google.
Once he analyzed Medium.com, he was amazed that its pages were ranking for over 2.5 million keywords. According to Semrush.com, Medium receives approximately 2 million visitors per search per month.
He reached out to the authors of these stories — and thanked them for letting him get a glimpse into their stats and what volume in readership has come from search.
Soon he figured out that 28,158 of those readers found the story (“The Physics of the Warped Wall: The science behind defeating one of Ninja Warrior’s toughest legendary obstacles!”) through Google. That number is greater than the number of readers that found the story from Medium or social media.
Ultimately, he shared the following tips:
“Domain Authority (DA) is a score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERP). Domain Authority scores range from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank.
Whereas Domain Authority measures the predictive ranking strength of entire domains or subdomains, Page Authority measures the strength of individual pages.”
When analyzing competition, I consider these three things:
- The quality of the content and how well it is on-page optimized.
- The quality and quantity of backlinks of the competing pages (Page Authority).
- The quality and quantity of backlinks of the domain's pages are published on (Domain Authority).
Google’s algorithm evaluates several “on-page SEO” factors to determine what a page is about. These on-page ranking factors include the following:
- Title
- Subheadings
- Meta description
- URL
- The content of the article
- Image tags
- Depending on the competition for a given keyword, you will probably still need to build links to your story to rank on Google.
- Medium enables you to acquire readers from within its platform (not just from search engines). Some topics have incredibly high engagement on Medium, which provides an attractive incentive to publish and build a following.
Bottom line: If your goal is to generate organic search traffic, and you have identified a high-volume search term relevant to your business, but the competition is currently too intense for you to rank for it on your domain, consider publishing the article on Medium.
Examples of recent web stories
The most trending topics of web stories or news are Corona, IRS, and social media apps. Here are the most recent trending stories:
- Why Facebook, Google, and Amazon want to build online payment platforms for India.
- It's official! Google services are coming back to Huawei’s former sub-brand.
- Google Maps will now help you see how busy an area is and give better walking directions.
- What Google knows about you, even if you don’t use its products.
Google Web stories are a great source of news, entertainment, and updated trends. But, it has the potential of false news! Overall, web stories are a great strategy in getting information to potential customers as well as readers.
