What are Web Stories?
Web Stories are short, full-screen, visually engaging, and easily shareable content that is optimized for viewing on both web and mobile devices (mobile web). They are similar to Instagram or Snapchat stories and can include a combination of text, images, videos, and animations.
Web Stories are designed to be interactive, allowing users to swipe or tap through the content. They are also discoverable through search engines, making them a great way for businesses to reach a wider audience and drive traffic to their websites. With Web Stories, brands can promote products and services directly to the audiences visiting their websites.
Web Stories use cases
Web Stories can be used in various ways across different industries and platforms. Here are some use cases for Web Stories:
Engaging Articles and Blog Posts
Web Stories can be used to create visually appealing and interactive articles or blog posts, which engage readers with immersive content like images, videos, and animations.
Product Showcases
Companies can use Web Stories to showcase their products or services, using visually engaging content to highlight key features, benefits, and customer reviews.
Educational Content
Educators and content creators can create Web Stories for sharing educational content like tutorials, how-to guides, or mini-courses, enhancing the learning experience with interactive multimedia.
Travel and Tourism
Web Stories can be used by travel bloggers or tourism organizations to create interactive guides, showcasing destinations, attractions, and travel tips, providing an immersive experience for potential travelers.
Recipes and Cooking
Food bloggers and chefs can use Web Stories to create step-by-step cooking guides or share their favorite recipes, with accompanying images or videos for each step, making it easy for users to follow along.
Event Promotion
Event organizers can create Web Stories to promote upcoming events, featuring event details, schedules, speaker profiles, and ticket information in a visually engaging format.
News and Journalism
News organizations and journalists can use Web Stories to create visually rich, interactive news content, allowing readers to quickly engage with and explore stories through multimedia elements.
Personal Stories and Testimonials
Individuals can use Web Stories to share their personal experiences, stories, or testimonials in an engaging and interactive format, connecting with their audience on a deeper level.
Where do Web Stories appear?
Web Stories can appear in various places online, depending on how they are shared and distributed. Some common places where Web Stories appear include:
Google Search and Discover
Web Stories may appear in Google Search and Google Discover when they are properly optimized and meet Google's content guidelines. This provides increased visibility and traffic to the publisher's website.
Social Media Platforms
Some social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, have integrated stories formats that are similar to Web Stories. You can create and share Web Stories on these platforms to engage with your audience.
Content Aggregators
Content aggregators like Flipboard, Apple News, and others may feature Web Stories from various publishers, offering another avenue for story distribution and visibility.
Embed on Websites
Publishers can embed Web Stories on their own websites, blog posts, or landing pages, providing an interactive and engaging experience for visitors.
Email Campaigns
Web Stories can be used as part of email marketing campaigns to present a visually compelling story or offer that encourages click-throughs and engagement.
Advertisements
Web Stories can be used as a creative ad format to showcase products, services, or promotions in a visually engaging manner. They can be integrated into display ad networks or used for native advertising.
Benefits of Web Stories for brands
Whether a brand is looking to boost their user engagement and retention rates, Stories can help capture attention and earn user loyalty at any point in the brand relationship. Some of the advantages of Web Stories can be found below:
Improved user experience
Web Stories can enhance the user experience by providing entertaining, easily understandable, snackable content at key points throughout a website. As a full-screen format, Stories eliminate distractions, making navigation simple and appealing, especially on mobile devices.
Increased engagement
Especially for digital-native shoppers such as Millenials and Gen Z, Web Stories maintain an engagement advantage by carrying the look and feel of social media into a brand’s website. Stories are intuitive, inviting, and interactive, combining image, video, stickers, and text, for a dynamic interface that users love.
Better reach
Web Stories are prominently featured in Google Search and give brands an opportunity to reach a wider audience. The Story format means easy information delivery for users which encourages engagement and helps capture new audiences for your brand.
Better SEO
Web Stories can improve a brand's search engine optimization (SEO) by providing additional content for search engines to index and potentially driving more website traffic. When both search engines and users find your Stories helpful and fun, SEO can become self-reinforcing, increasing your reach as your audience grows.
Measurable results
Brands can track the success of their Web Stories through Story analytics, allowing them to see how well their content is performing and make improvements as needed. With Storyly analytics, marketing teams can monitor Story KPIs in real-time.
Web Story examples
Below are some use-case examples from Storyly’s customers.
Domino’s
Domino’s Pizza has been using Stories both in their apps and on their websites to various ends. One of the main benefits of Stories has been feature adoption. Domino’s marketers use Stories to educate customers about their wallet feature. With step-by-step explanations and clear CTAs, Stories help Domino’s ensure that their customers make the most of the website. They also promote their latest product called “Pizetta” via Stories and occasionally ask for customer feedback with Storyly’s Question Sticker.
Olly
Olly is a maker of premium nutrition and wellness products, popular in the USA. Stories help deliver information about their products in an engaging way and make nutrition easy to understand. Their website features a Story group called “For You” to display products with special discount offers and understand their customers’ 2023 goals by using the Question Sticker. By helping visitors better understand their products in a friendly and approachable way, Olly reduces customer overwhelm, creating a smoother path to conversion.
Footasylum
Footasylum is a leader in British street and sports fashion known especially for captivating younger shoppers through fashion-focused content. By using Stories in their app and on their website, Footasylum has been able to utilize their extensive content library internally and benefit from the engagement. On the website, Footasylum uses a Story Row featuring their most popular products, collections, and promotions. By helping visitors find their next favorites quickly and easily without being overwhelmed, the Stories have earned an 18% increase in CTR, a 21% decrease in exits, and an overall 8% boost in conversion!
SoulCycle
SoulCycle is known for maintaining a devoted fanbase of cycling enthusiasts who love their intense and motivating spinning classes. As much a lifestyle brand as a fitness routine, SoulCycle offers its clientele a collection of “Soul Stories,” in the app and on the website, that range from Soul101 (how to get started with classes) to Soulisms (a fun glossary of SoulCycle terminology.) Stories help SoulCycle quickly onboard new visitors and welcome them to their community.
Picard
German maker and purveyor of luxury leather goods, Picard, uses Stories to help customers with product discovery. For example, a recent Valentine’s Day promotion Story showcased a selection of perfect gifts with embedded product codes that helped visitors go straight to checkout for a streamlined user experience.
Zavetti
Zavetti is an Italian luxury sportswear brand that uses Web Stories to make it easier to navigate their product catalog. By offering visitors a quick entry to their best-sellers and special offers, Zavetti can increase engagement, and help new customers feel confident in their choices.
