How to Create Web Stories to Increase Website Traffic?

Web Stories are a new and exciting way to tell stories on the web. They’re visually rich, immersive, and mobile-friendly. And they’re eligible to appear in Google News and Discover, which means that you can reach a huge audience with your stories.

How do you create Web Stories that will drive traffic to your website?

Choose topics that are relevant to your target audience and that have the potential to generate interest: The first step in choosing relevant topics is to understand your target audience. What are your readers interested in? What problems do they have? What solutions can you offer them?

Once you have a good understanding of your target audience, you can start to brainstorm topics that they are likely to be interested in. One way to do this is to look at what other publishers are writing about. What topics are trending on social media? What are people searching for online?

You can also use keyword research tools to identify popular topics and keywords that your readers are likely to be interested in.

Another way to choose relevant topics is to think about the problems that your readers have. What are their challenges? What are they struggling with? How can you help them solve their problems or achieve their goals?

For example, if you are writing for an audience of business owners, you might want to write articles about how to start a business, how to market a business, and how to grow a business.

Once you have identified a problem that your readers have, you can start to think about solutions that you can offer them. What advice can you give them? What resources can you share with them?

For example, if you are writing for an audience of people who are trying to lose weight, you might want to write articles about healthy eating tips, exercise plans, and weight loss motivation.

Use high-quality visuals and audio in your Web Stories: High-quality visuals and audio are essential for creating engaging and immersive Web Stories. Smartphones have high-resolution screens, so it’s important to use images and videos that are optimized for these devices. You can also use audio to add interest and engagement to your stories.

Images

• Use high-resolution images that are at least 1200px wide.
• Optimize your images for web by compressing them without sacrificing quality.
• Use a variety of image formats, such as JPEG, PNG, and SVG, to ensure that your images are displayed correctly on all devices.
• Avoid using copyrighted images without permission.

Videos

• Use high-resolution videos that are at least 1080p.
• Encode your videos in a web-friendly format, such as MP4 or WebM.
• Keep your videos short and to the point. Aim for videos that are less than 15 seconds long per page, or 60 seconds maximum.
• Add captions or subtitles to your videos so that they can be enjoyed by viewers with disabilities or in noisy environments.

Audio

• Use high-quality audio clips that are at least 5 seconds long.
• Balance your audio clips to prevent unpleasant spikes in volume.
• Avoid using copyrighted audio clips without permission.

Tips for using audio in Web Stories

• Use audio to narrate your story, add background music, or play sound effects.
• Use audio to create a sense of place or atmosphere.
• Use audio to highlight important information or call viewers to action.
• Be sure to test your audio clips on a variety of devices to make sure they sound good on all of them.

Write engaging and informative captions: Captions are an important part of your Web Stories. They are the first thing that people will see when they come across your story, and they can play a big role in whether or not people decide to watch it.

Good captions are clear, concise, and informative. They should accurately describe the visuals that you’re using, and they should also provide additional context or insights.

Tips for writing engaging and informative captions:

• Start with a strong hook. The first sentence of your caption should grab the reader’s attention and make them want to learn more. You can do this by asking a question, sharing a surprising fact, or telling a story.
• Be clear and concise. Get to the point quickly and avoid using unnecessary jargon. Your captions should be easy to read and understand, even for people who are unfamiliar with the topic of your story.
• Be informative. Provide additional context or insights that are not immediately apparent from the visuals. This could include things like statistics, quotes from experts, or behind-the-scenes information.
• Be relevant. Make sure that your captions are relevant to the visuals that you’re using. Don’t just copy and paste the text from your image or video. Instead, write captions that add value to the visuals and help to tell your story.
• Use a call to action. Tell the reader what you want them to do after reading your caption. This could be something like visiting your website, following you on social media, or watching another one of your Web Stories.

Optimize your stories for search by using relevant keywords throughout: Using relevant keywords throughout your Web Stories is essential for optimizing them for search. This will help Google to understand what your stories are about and to include them in the appropriate search results.

Tips for using keywords in your Web Stories:

• Include your primary keyword in the title and description of your story. This is the most important place to use your keyword, as it will be the first thing that Google sees when indexing your story.
• Use your keyword throughout the body of your story. However, avoid keyword stuffing, which is the practice of using keywords too often or in a way that is unnatural.
• Use related keywords and synonyms. This will help to expand your reach and ensure that your stories are found by people who are searching for different variations of your keyword.
• Use long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are more specific and less competitive than short-tail keywords. This means that you have a better chance of ranking for long-tail keywords.

Make sure your Web Stories are mobile-friendly: Google News and Discover are primarily consumed on mobile devices, so it’s important to make sure that your Web Stories look good and function well on smartphones and tablets.

Tips for making your Web Stories mobile-friendly:

• Use responsive design. Responsive design ensures that your Web Stories will look good and function well on all devices, regardless of screen size.
• Use high-quality images and videos. However, make sure to optimize your images and videos for mobile devices by compressing them without sacrificing quality.
• Keep your text concise and to the point. Mobile users have smaller screens, so it’s important to avoid cluttering your stories with too much text.
• Use large fonts and buttons. This will make it easier for mobile users to read and interact with your stories.
• Test your stories on different mobile devices. This will help to ensure that your stories look good and function well on a variety of devices.

Promote your Web Stories on social media and other websites: One of the best ways to promote your Web Stories is to share them on social media and other websites that your target audience frequents. This will help to get your stories in front of more people and increase your chances of getting engagement.

Tips for promoting your Web Stories on social media and other websites:

• Share your stories on your social media channels. This includes platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest.
• Join relevant groups and communities on social media. This is a great way to connect with potential viewers and share your stories with them.
• Reach out to influencers in your niche. Offer to share their stories with your audience, and ask them to do the same for you.
• Publish your stories on your website or blog. This is a great way to get your stories in front of your existing audience.
• Submit your stories to relevant directories and websites. There are a number of directories and websites that accept submissions of Web Stories. This is a great way to get your stories in front of a wider audience.

Web Stories: A Step-by-Step Guide

To ensure your Web Stories are easily discoverable on Google and across various platforms, follow these steps:

Make Your Web Stories Valid AMP: AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages, is a web technology that allows web pages to load faster and display more smoothly on mobile devices. Web Stories are a type of AMP page that is specifically designed for telling stories on the web.

In order to be eligible to appear in Google Search and Discover, Web Stories must be valid AMP. This means that they must adhere to various AMP specifications.

There are a few different ways to check if your Web Story is valid AMP:

• Use the Web Stories Google Test Tool. This tool will check your Web Story for any AMP errors.
• Use the URL Inspection Tool. This tool will check if your Web Story is valid AMP and the Google indexing status of a URL.
• Use the AMP Linter. This tool can be used to validate Web Stories during development via the command line.

Tips for making sure that your Web Stories are valid AMP:

• Use the AMP Story Creator to create your Web Stories. The AMP Story Creator is a tool that makes it easy to create valid AMP Web Stories.
• Avoid using any non-AMP HTML or CSS in your Web Stories.
• Use the AMP Validator to validate your Web Stories before publishing them.

By following these tips, you can ensure that your Web Stories are valid AMP and that they will provide the best possible experience for your users.

Why is it important to make sure that your Web Stories are valid AMP?

There are a few reasons why it is important to make sure that your Web Stories are valid AMP:

• Performance: AMP Web Stories load faster and display more smoothly on mobile devices. This is because AMP reduces the amount of code and resources that need to be loaded to display the story.
• Experience: AMP Web Stories provide a more immersive and engaging experience for users. This is because AMP Web Stories are designed specifically for mobile devices and they allow users to easily navigate through the story by tapping or swiping.
• Eligibility: AMP Web Stories are eligible to appear in Google Search and Discover. This means that your Web Stories can reach a wider audience and be seen by more people.

Metadata: Optimizing Your Web Stories for Google Search and Discover: Metadata is important for Web Stories because it helps search engines to understand what your stories are about and to display them in the best possible way. For example, the title of your story will be used as the headline in the search results, and the description will be used as the snippet.

To make your Web Stories eligible for Google Search and Discover experiences, meticulous attention to metadata is required. Here’s a step-by-step guide to ensuring your Web Stories shine in the preview:

Which metadata fields are required for Web Stories? The following metadata fields are required for Web Stories:

• Publisher logo: This is a logo that represents your brand. It will be displayed in the search results and in the Web Stories experience.

• Provide a raster file, such as .jpg or .png, avoiding vector files like .svg or .eps.
• Avoid animated images, such as gifs.
• Ensure logo legibility on the background color.
• Maintain a size of at least 96×96 pixels as a perfect square.
• The background should not be transparent.
• Maintain one consistent logo per brand.

• Poster image: This is an image that represents your story. It will be displayed in the search results and in the Web Stories experience.

• The poster image should represent the entire Web Story.
• It should be visible when the story begins, even if the URL may not exactly match the first page’s URL.
• Provide a raster file, avoiding vector files.
• Follow recommended aspect ratios: 3×4 for portrait, 4×3 for landscape, and 1×1 for square.
• Ensure the thumbnail represents video content if derived from a video frame.
• Each poster image should meet minimum size recommendations: 640x853px for portrait, 853x640px for landscape, and 640x640px for square.

• Title: This is the title of your story. It will be displayed in the search results and in the Web Stories experience.
• Publisher: This is the name of your brand. It will be displayed in the search results and in the Web Stories experience.

Landscape Orientation and Full Bleed Desktop Experience Opt-In:

• The supports-landscape attribute in the <amp-story> element allows mobile users to view stories in landscape orientation.
• For desktop users, it transforms the experience into an immersive full bleed mode, replacing the default portrait layout.

Live Story:

• The live-story attribute facilitates real-time updates within a story, making it ideal for breaking news, live events, and dynamic content.

Web Stories Best Practices: Creating Engaging and Successful Stories

Web Stories are a new and exciting way to tell stories on the web. They’re visually rich, immersive, and mobile-friendly. And they’re eligible to appear in Google Search and Discover, which means that you can reach a huge audience with your stories.

But how do you create Web Stories that are both engaging and successful? Here are a few best practices to keep in mind:

• Video first: Video is more engaging than text or images, so use as much video as possible in your Web Stories. You can supplement with images and text, but keep your focus on the video.
• Reduce your character count: Avoid including multiple pages with walls of text. Instead, consider reducing your text to approximately 280 characters per page (the length of a tweet).
• Don’t block text: Make sure that your text is not blocked by other content on the page. Avoid using burned-in text, as this can cause problems when your story is resized to fit different devices.
• Keep text within bounds: Ensure that all of the text in your Web Story is visible to the reader. Again, avoid using burned-in text, as this can cause your text to overflow when it is resized.
• Use animations mindfully: Animations can bring your Web Stories to life, but use them sparingly and wisely. Avoid distracting or repetitive animations, as these can cause fatigue.
• Provide high-quality content: Just like any other web page, the most important thing you can do is to provide high-quality content that is useful and interesting to your readers. Include a complete narrative and follow storytelling best practices to keep your readers engaged.
• Keep the title short: Keep your Web Story titles shorter than 90 characters. Ideally, your title should be shorter than 70 characters and descriptive.
• Make sure Google Search can find your story: Don’t include a noindex attribute in your Web Stories, as this will block Google from indexing your page and prevent it from appearing in Google Search. You should also add your Web Stories to your sitemap. You can use the Index Coverage Report and Sitemaps Report in Search Console to check if Google can find your Web Stories.
• Make the story self-canonical: All Web Stories must be canonical. Make sure that each Web Story has a link rel=”canonical” to itself. For example: <link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.advgyan.com/url/to/webstory.html”>
• Attach metadata: Make sure that your Web Stories follow the AMP story metadata guidelines. This includes including markup that you would normally include on a web page, such as:
  • Title and description meta tags
  • Structured data
  • OGP
  • Twitter card

By following these best practices, you can create Web Stories that are engaging, informative, and successful.