Hello, welcome to another
from the
I am Pascal Birchler,
Developer Relations Engineer at Google.
Today, I'm going to tell you all about Web Stories,
a new and modern way
for immersive storytelling on the open web.
In this talk, I will explain what Web Stories are,
how to create stories,
and how you, as an online marketer,
blogger, or site owner,
can make the most out of them.
Let's dive right in.
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In essence, Web Stories are a web-based version
of the popular stories format
you might be already familiar with
from certain social apps.
They blend video, images,
animation and text
to create fully immersive fullscreen experiences
typically consumed in portrait mode
on your smartphone.
Stories let you explore content at your own pace
by tapping through them
or swiping from one piece of content to the next.
Contrary to their social counterparts,
Web Stories allow you to create beautiful and engaging content
while having full control
over the experience and monetization.
You heard right.
Every decision from how you monetize your story
to how long it stays online
is up to you.
This freedom gives you great creative flexibility
and the possibility to easily link out
to your other content as well,
making Stories a natural part of your website.
How is that possible?
Well, Web Stories are part of the open web
and essentially regular HTML pages under the hood.
That means they can be hosted on your own server
and easily shared or embedded across sites and apps
without any ecosystem restrictions.
So how does one go about creating Web Stories?
There are a few ways,
depending on your needs and expertise.
First, since they are just web pages,
you could build them by hand.
That's especially useful
when wanting to create stories with highly custom functionality.
However, like for regular web pages,
it is important to have the right tools at hand
to create Web Stories.
After all, not everyone is a developer.
That's why there are standalone story editing tools
to help you speed up the content creation process
without having to write a single line of code.
Tools that allow you to achieve better results
thanks to visual editing and guidance
along the way.
Many such editors already exist today,
such as MakeStories,
Visual Stories,
or Newsroom AI.
If your site is built using a CMS,
there are dedicated solutions for that too.
For example, with the Web Stories for WordPress plugin,
you can seamlessly integrate stories
into your existing editorial workflow
and make them an inherent part of your website.
Such editors make it easy and fun
to produce visually stunning stories
and guide you towards a beautiful end result.
They take care of all the heavy lifting,
so you can focus on the actual story creation itself.
As you can see, that part is a breeze
thanks to an intuitive WYSIWYG interface
and helpful building blocks
to get off the ground quickly.
But even the best Web Story isn't worth anything
if it doesn't make you more successful.
Let's take a look at how you can make the most out of Web Stories
using the various techniques and platforms
available to you.
After all, you would want to ensure
Stories benefit your overall strategy
and produce a Return On Investment.
If you want your stories to be found
and indexed by search engines,
you would want to think about SEO.
In a nutshell,
you should be doing all the SEO practices
you would do for any other page on your website.
If it helps rank your non-story pages,
it will probably help your stories as well.
This includes things like adding meta descriptions
and including Stories in your XML sitemaps.
There are also a few story-specific requirements
to keep in mind.
For example, some necessary metadata
needs to be supplied as well,
like a poster image
and a publisher logo.
For more details,
I recommend checking out the
about SEO for Web Stories
on the new Google Web Creators YouTube channel.
To measure and improve your performance
on Google Search and Discover,
you can use Search Console
to better understand how Google sees your pages.
Its various tools and reports
help you analyze your traffic,
fix potential issues,
and make your stories really shine in Google Search results.
Web Stories can actually appear on Google across Search,
Discover, and Images.
On Search, the appearance can range
from a single search result
to a visual carousel
showcasing multiple stories,
depending on your country and language.
To give you an example,
when people search for things to do in New York,
the grid view shows Web Stories from multiple publishers.
For your Web Stories to be eligible
to appear in places like that,
they have to meet certain guidelines.
Most importantly,
they have to be valid AMP.
A valid AMP story
is one that adheres to various AMP specifications.
This allows the story to be served via the AMP cache
and ensures good performance
and the best experience for your users.
Use the Web Stories test tool
to verify that your Web Story is valid
by typing or pasting its URL.
It also allows you to preview how the story will look like
in Google Search results,
so you can decide whether anything needs further tweaking.
Once you have published your story
and validated it using the Web Stories test tool,
it is time to share it with the world.
With that, it might be a good idea
to measure how your audience interacts with the story.
How much time do they spend on a page?
Are they clicking on the call-to-action links?
It is possible to set up analytics for your Web Stories
with a broad range of providers,
such as Google Analytics,
to get all the answers to these questions.
There are many guides and best practices
available for setting up Web Stories analytics
according to your needs.
It is worth taking some time
to read these materials
in order to get a better understanding of the possibilities.
Monetization is an important aspect
for publishers on the web
and just as relevant for Web Stories
as for other types of content.
In Web Stories,
monetization capabilities exist,
for example, through immersive fullscreen ads,
allowing for seamless integration into the user's journey.
The easiest way to include this
is through an ad server, like Google Ad Manager
or via AdSense.
Since the Web Stories Runtime
handles ad quantity and placement,
you only really have to set everything up once
and can then forget about it.
Pretty easy.
These are all the things to keep in mind
for optimizing stories themselves,
but what about the rest of your website?
Web Stories can shine there, too.
For example, you can embed stories
elsewhere on your site
in a standalone player
or display a carousel of your favorite stories.
By linking your content this way,
your readers can easily reach your stories
from other parts of your website
and vice versa.
While the various components and examples exist for that
and can be implemented manually,
your story editor of choice
likely already offers such integrations out of the box.
SEO, Analytics, AMP, monetization--
these are quite a few things to take care of.
Luckily, story creation tools
like Web Stories for WordPress
are of tremendous help to set things up
and stay on top of everything.
Not only do they provide solid default configurations
out of the box
for things like analytics and serving ads,
they will also include the required metadata for Stories
and tell you when something needs optimization.
Thanks to integrations
with other aspects of your website,
you can measure your Web Story success
all in one place.
With this, you should now have a better picture
of what Web Stories are,
how you can create stories,
and how you can fully leverage their potential.
For more information about Web Stories
and a collection of inspiring examples,
I recommend checking out the dedicated Web Stories on Google website.
On the new Google Web Creators YouTube channel,
you can check out the
in which you will learn more about story creation best practices
and how to make the most out of Web Stories in general.
I'm already looking forward to seeing
all the amazing stories you create.
Thank you very much for listening and have a great day.
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