Google Web Stories are one of Google\u2019s newest and current generation search experiences, which you can host on your own website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To gather more insights into Web Stories on Google, we at Alien Road have deep-dived into all their different aspects, analyzed how the interface works for over 2,400 search results and created a comprehensive research study for 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our study focuses on different aspects, and some of the key things we analyzed are (but not limited to):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Web Stories are a web-based version of the popular story format. Creators host their own content and the results appear in SERPs. Creators can use a mix of colors, words and more to create their story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The best way to create Google Web Stories is to start with a story or idea that you feel needs to be seen. Once the idea is there, creators can use various tools to bring that idea to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the story has been created and is ready to be viewed, it\u2019s time to publish on a website and share it. The story will appear on relevant Google surfaces, including search and discover . Keep in mind, the Stories carousel is currently only available in the US, India, and Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now you know what Google Web Stories are and how they work, let\u2019s discuss the findings from our research study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We analyzed 2,423 SERPs between March and April 2021. The search area we focused on was in the United States and mobile devices only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The average number of stories that appeared on one SERP was 3; there was always at least 1 story on SERP and never more than 4, while the medium result for stories on SERP was also 4 instances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our observations have shown that in a majority of cases, the visual stories search feature appears quite high in position or placement within a search result \u2014 averaging around position 5-6 (we considered surrounding SERP features as if they had their own positions). Having such a prominent position makes this feature interesting to be in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other SERP features that most commonly appear together with Web Stories are: People Also Ask, Interesting Finds, Video Carousel, Knowledge Panel, and Top Stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Visual stories can trigger other events in SERP, such as \u2018people also ask.\u2019 The chart below shows what things get triggered and where.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On average, the URL of one story appears on 5 different SERPs. But, according to the median value, more than 50% of stories analyzed appear only on one SERP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The majority of domains (21.4%) have traffic between 0 to 5000, so even small domains tend to appear on the visual stories SERP feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 3 domains that appear the most frequently are amp.travel (Travel niche), washingtonpost.com (Publishing niche), stories.mbl.com (Sporting niche).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The majority of domains that appear in Web Stories have traffic between 0-20k, with the third most common traffic activity number being more than 10M.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The average number of words on a Web Story page is 22, while the maximum number of words is 194. The majority of pages have no text (we assume that stories with 1-3 words have no text, for example, the name of the object in the photo) \u2014 11% of all pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we drop these pages and analyze texts, we can see from the distribution of the number of words that there are two peaks, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not popular to put a huge amount of information on a page as Web Stories are a very visual medium. Creators seem to be aiming for a balance in content between beautiful pictures and texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The majority of stories contain about 14 pages. Best practice is to have a smaller number of pages so that the reader will follow the story to the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Average number of keywords used in Web Stories is 4, where 1 is the minimum number and 12 is the maximum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keywords used ranged from short tail to long tail. An example of a short-tail keyword is \u2018America,\u2019 and an example of a long-tail keyword is \u2018Good places to go on a honeymoon in the US.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The major keyword topic that generated visual stories was related to the travel niche. Keywords in the recipe, fashion, and gaming niches also generated visual stories, but the majority were related to travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The majority of keywords that generate Web Stories are not high volume. There are many small thematic keywords that trigger stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The objective of the last page of a story is to lead the reader to the main domain that created the story itself. The most common call-to-action phrases used were the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most statistically popular colors used in images are shades of grey-blues and soft brown\/beige colors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The average share of pages with image sis 84%, with videos is 13%, and text only pages is 3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most popular topic used for keywords that generate visual stories is related to the travel niche. Keywords in the recipe, fashion, and gaming niches also generate visual stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Google Web Stories have a favorable position in the SERPs, and with the exploding trend of digital visual communication (Snapchat, Tik Tok, etc.), it\u2019s an avenue that is worth entering to boost visibility and to drive more meaningful traffic to your website, especially for news publishers, travel-based platforms and sporting news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5 Creative Ways Brands Can Say \u201cThank You\u201d On X Community and social media managers ..<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How to Make Google Web Stories Google Web Stories are one of Google\u2019s newest and current generation search experiences, which you can host on your own website. To gather more insights into Web Stories on Google, we at Alien Road have deep-dived into all their different aspects, analyzed how the interface works for over 2,400 search<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31568,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31292\/revisions\/31568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}