Written by Back in 2018, Google and the AMP project released a new format of Stories for the Web.
They are called Web Stories.
This Stories format (powered by AMP) is made for publishers, bloggers and website owners.
The Web Stories offer a tappable and mobile-friendly experience to the visitors of a website – no additional application required.
The format is an answer from Google to the stories you can find on Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms and they have a huge advantage: Web Stories can be found via Google Search.
Web Stories can generate organic traffic to your website.
Let’s cover the most important aspect of a web story.
Table of Contents
What is Web Stories?
Web Stories is the story format made for the web. It is powered by the AMP technology and supported by Google.
A Web Story offers a similar format and features than the stories you can find on your favourite social network.
A story is a short collection of pages containing text, video, sounds and images. The reader can click to see the next screen.
The format has been developed initially for publishers. Indeed they can use Web Stories to tell “a story” directly on their website.
The readers can consume the content from the site or mobile website – no need for another mobile application to read it.
The Web Stories format offers some key differences with the ones from Facebook or Instagram.
Even though the users have the same experience, as a publisher, you can embed the story on your site (with a simple HTML iFrame), and it can also be found on Google.
Being discoverable on Google search is a huge difference: Anybody can find your story while doing web research.
We can list some of the excellent features offered by Web Stories by AMP.
Overview of Web Stories features
Rich story on the web
A web story gives a similar experience than the Stories you already know from Facebook: A collection of image, video and text. You click next to see the next page.
The big difference is that each story has an URL.
This is my very first web story
Tap to play the story of my cat.
Indeed, it’s a web page, and you can embed it on your site, and even share it by email. Well, it’s an URL, you can share it anywhere online.
Web Stories can be found on Google search
A Web Story is a web page. Web Story can be indexed. Web Story can be found.
By doing a Google search, you find some Web Stories. You will instead find them from your mobile as they have a dedicated section called Top Stories.
Fullscreen and desktop view
Another significant difference, Web Stories can be consumed from your desktop and in a full-screen mode.
Call to Action
You can add a call to action on any page of your stories to redirect to your main website or products. You have the freedom to customize your pages as you want.
Read more Stories or content
At the end of a story, you can link to other stories or pages of your website (with the bookend feature). Always an excellent way to feed your reader with more content.
Newest feature in 2021
The AMP team constantly adding new features, such as:
- Poll and quiz components
- 360° images and video
- Multi-devices test mode.
Learn more about the new features available with web stories
Great examples of Web Stories
Simply click or tap on the stories below to move to the next page.
Google Page Experience Signal
Author: Glenn Gabe.
Sahel a region of opportunities
Author: UNDP
Going further with Web Stories
Are you curious about this new format and would like to learn more?
I can recommend the following resources to learn everything about the Web Stories and also what are the tools available to help you create your first story.
Complete Guide about Web Stories
Are you ready to deep dive in the Web Stories? I’ve wrote a comprehensive guide explaining everything about the Web (and AMP) Story format. You will understand why it is good for SEO and how to create you very first story.
Create your first Web Story with an editor
Do you want to create and share your Web Stories with the world. There are two options: you can code it or use a great web stories editor. Maybe the second option is the easiest.
I’ve compiled information about the best Web and AMP Stories builders. Check this complete review to find out which tool is the best for you.
Thankyou samuel for such a wonderful guide.
I had tried my hand on web story https://www.classmate4u.com/stories/types-of-digital-computer/.
I have a question how we can display these stories like blog page in our website.
Hi, you can embed a story on a page with an iFrame.
https://samuelschmitt.com/google-amp-stories/#How_to_create_and_publish_your_first_AMP_Story
This is how I’ve display the stories on my website.
It’s really helpful for me about Web Stories. Thanks.
This web story is very nice . Thanks for sharing this
Hi Samuel! Thank you so much for the post! I was trying to figure out how to design the story in fullscreen/desktop version (like the example of Washington Post.) with Google Web Story.
I can see the desktop preview but it does not use the fullscreen display. Just the cell version with black area around framing all.
Any clue about it?
Thanks!!
Amazing story and storytelling, thank you for this story or post.
Great Post, thank you for sharing.
Hi Samuel,
How can I create a full screen web story on WordPress (with the google web stories plugin)? I really would like to have a web story as a header image carousel. That would be awesome! Do you have any idea how to create this?
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This web story is pretty wonderful . I appreciate you sharing this.
Thank you for this post or narrative; it is an amazing story and storytelling.
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