Semalt Shares 7 Google's Tips For Creating Interesting Web Stories 

Keeping your visitors engaged should be the top priority of every website. With the rising number of internet users, it is becoming more difficult to keep visitors entertained. As more websites are created, the less entertaining previous entertainments become. 

To keep visitors engaged, websites have taken to creating web stories and featuring video series. If you haven't tried them out, your visitors are missing out on a whole new level of entertainment.  Here, we will be showing you how you can use Web stories and video series to build your audience and gain more traffic.

Google has designed a guide with tips designed to help creators develop more compelling and interesting stories for their websites. These guidelines have been designed to help content creators like Semalt as well as website owners such as you create Web Stories that will have an impact on their SEO.

To pull off some of the best web stories, we first had to understand what a web story was and why it was important. Web stories are contents that are meant to be consumed as easy-to-digest content by a reader. This type of content is the perfect tool in keeping on the go readers as well as readers who need to read something light in order to pass the time.

Google has begun promoting Web Stories across several of its platforms. Users can now see these stories on search, News, and Discover. When your story gets featured on these platforms, you get an opportunity to attract more traffic. For this reason, we also like to see web stories as a channel for more traffic. For example, YouTube and podcasts are common traffic channels. They give businesses as well as websites fresh and interesting ways to get customers, which goes beyond the traditional blue links on SERPs.

By using web stories, you can tap into a fresh demographic of the audience and grow a devoted audience that will return day after day to view your content.

Besides the tips given by Google, we also see a YouTube series which gets publishers introduced to the concept of Web Stories and all the creative possibilities. 

Stories have always been a great way to form relationships. As children, we loved stories, and we quickly formed friendships with anyone who took out time to tell us stories. As we grew, we shared stories with our friends. This shows how powerful something simple can be in creating relationships. As a company, you want your customers to be able to see you as a friend.

Google highlighted seven key tips, which are

Using video is helpful, considering that they are one of the most engaging content to be published on webpages. When using web stories, the proper format requires you to use a 9:16 aspect ratio, which is in portrait mode.

Videos are a great way to keep your web users engaged. To optimize videos for storytelling, you should consider giving them a portrait landscape 9:16. That helps you take full advantage of mobile screens. It is also important that you make the video full bleed to help readers focus on a single key subject at a time. When you are using videos with audio, use closed captions. Ensure that your audience can follow your story.

Create stories where you are the protagonist. Your stories are likely to be read by majorly mobile phone users while they are at work, bored on a date, or several other scenarios. That means that your stories should give a personal touch since mobile phones are directly facing your audience. You can use commentary in your videos to add more content and perspective.

Google doesn't go into details explaining why using a first-person storytelling format is beneficial. However, there is good logic in assuming that this choice gives the stories a personal touch. Stories aren't like your typical web content. They require a personal touch; generally, this makes stories more interesting and connects the reader and the website.

Your brand's identity is the image of your business to your audience and the world. Your brand's identity includes your visual style, the colors you use, and your logo. Most times, these three elements are all consumers rely on to distinguish one brand from another. From the moment they begin to follow your story, your viewers should be able to see your brand written all over it. Consistency in branding leads to comfort and loyalty from many readers.

You should import your color pallet and logo into any Web Story creation tool you may have. Select fonts that compliment your brand's image.  The fonts you choose to use can be very powerful. Ensure you keep it simple and easy to read. Avoid having fonts that blend with the background as they can make reading difficult.

In your web stories, try to blend videos, audios, images, and animations to create an easy to consume narrative. Using dynamic infographics and visuals are excellent ways to keep your readers engaged. Using graphs and charts makes it easier to understand a topic using minimal text. This is a great way to inform your readers quickly and clearly. 

Sometimes, using images and videos alone wouldn't cut it. When you can, you should try to add some illustrations to your story. Using animations and illustration breathes life into your story. Your illustrations can be anything from funny comics to action or hand-drawn cartoons. You can create these illustrations in popular design tools, optimize them before importing them into your story.

Using quizzes and polls are great ways to interact with your audience. These types of content are called interactive components. Visual editors are currently working on supporting these new features so you can use them without having to write a new line of code. Having quizzes and polls is very effective in increasing engagement, which makes your stories more compelling. Quizzes and polls are also a good source of consumer feedback. It also educates your audience about your brand.

Animations which stand on their own makes your website appear more interesting and enjoyable. The timing and style add to the tone and messages your story carries. Ensure that you choose an animation style that suits you and your aesthetics. You should also be mindful of how quickly things can change. Sometimes, your story may automatically advance to the next page before some users get a chance to read it. This is why you should consider slowing down your auto-advance feature to create more time for readers to see each page's content. 

Google also recommends that web experts watch their video series on how to create great web stories. The videos are short, and we watch them in our free time as a fun way of learning. From this video, we have learned that each web story should have a nice heading.

The series offers samples of high-quality web stories. Then it gives quality tips on production, how to build a narrative, how to surface your web stories to attract more traffic, and other aspects that deal with the technical aspects of making your Web Stories successful.  

At first, many of our clients think having a web story is a daunting way to bring more traffic. However, we have realized that even the slightest learning curve can become a barrier to entry, to the lazy and undetermined. What we are saying is that there are many ways your website can become better. Many of these solutions sound silly and such opportunities are only harnessed by those willing to put into learning such SEO trends get to enjoy the rewards.

Imagine the potential traffic you stand to gain by being the only website caring enough to throw in stories on their website. Interesting stories such as how your company was formed or the first order you completed goes a long way in making your readers happy. It shows that you are genuine, it shows that you're human, just like your audience, and it is these differences that help you stand out even as a small company.

Semalt has many tricks up its sleeves, and our clients get to enjoy every one of them. That is why our family of clients keeps growing. We are a company that treats each website as unique. Send us a message today and watch your website move to the first page of SERP.