How I made my first Google Story in WordPress in 10 easy steps

Maybe some of you are unaware of the fact that Google is offering a new tool called as Google stories and it is precisely not the new thing as these were earlier known as amp stories. However, Google has been pushing hard into it and has recently launched a plugin which can be used by everyone to create Google story of their own for right in the WordPress website.

What exactly is Google story?

You must be already familiar with Instagram and Facebook stories. So, Google stories are almost similar to these stories and play a powerful role in content marketing.

Google used the same concept and implement it on Google search results. They launched amp stories which are now known as Google web stories. However, they have now launched a WordPress plugin recently, creating Google web stories using only the WordPress website.

Precisely Google stories are visually appealing and small and stackable content that a user can find using the Google search engine or Google discover on mobiles. These stories are available on Google image search as well. This tool has helped the users to promote their business or content more efficiently.

How I made my first Google story using the WordPress plugin

Let’s now have a look at how I made my first Google story on the WordPress website.

I wrote an article on newsletters and thought, why not make a Google web story about it? Not going to lie; It took a bit of time learning how to make Google web stories. After thorough learning, I did make a Google web story, and least to say, I impressed myself.

These are the steps I followed to make my first Google story

• Web story plugin is currently only available in the Beta version and not in the WordPress repository of plugins, so I had to download the beta version manually. With the download of the beta version, I got the zip file downloaded.
• Next is the installing option. I navigated to the ‘Plugins’ and click on ‘Add new’ and then on ‘upload plugin.’
• Next, I chose the zip file and then clicked on the ‘install now’ option.
• Once the plugin is installed, a new option of ‘stories’ gets visible after the plugin activation.
• I then clicked on the ‘dashboard’ option and started making my web stories. There was an option of ‘create new story,’ which I clicked. There I explored the list of templates and used one of them for my story.
• Choosing the templates to took me to the ‘editor.’ Editing the content was pretty easy as it was just dragging the content on canvas, and the story was created.
• I used my title as ‘5 top newsletter platforms’ in the ‘add title’ slot. After saving the draft, I adjusted the background colour of the canvas.
• Then I clicked on the text option presented as ‘T’ on the left side of the page and offered’ heading,’ ‘sub-heading,’ and ‘body text’ option.
• In the tutorial, I saw that I need to adjust my text within the canvas’s margins, so I adjusted my text accordingly. There were options on the right side of the page that would change the text’s alignment, colour, and size, so I edited my text format using these.
• There was the option of adding a link to the text on the right side of the page. Using this option, I added my blog link to the text.
• Then I adjusted the image present in the ‘image’ option.
• I needed to make six stories, one for title and introduction and one for each 5′ newsletter platforms’. So I used a blank canvas for each slide and adjusted them accordingly.
• On the right side was the option of ‘document’ where I could set my story’s status, save it and name it, and eventually publish it after the adjustments.

What are the benefits I find of using Google story?

Before making and eventually publishing a Google story, I had some questions in my mind. Why should I use another type of content when I have so many ways to attract and communicate audiences? A story needs more visuals than an article itself, and it is hard and expensive to find the right images for the content, right?

I got my answers after I published my first story. Some reasons I would again use web stories are:

Stories attract mobile viewers — Let’s not deny that we all love to spend most of our time on our mobile phones and are the best way to attract mobile using audiences, making up most of the organic visits.

They come with the support of Google itself — They are visible in Google search results, Google image results, and Google discover. Hence, improving the chance for more traffic.

They can help monetize the content — while I can add on only one link per story, it is still a good option to directly get your audience to your website or blog.

They offer various content support — Be it videos or animations, I could use any content I had in hand for stories.

Why I used Google stories with WordPress

To me, the Google stories seemed a good fit for blog content on WordPress. The web story format helped bring traffic to my WordPress website by integrating the plugin. This eventually helped improve my SEO and rank it high in Google search, images, discovery, and Google app.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, stories are an interesting and powerful way to publish the content on the WordPress website. Google story with WordPress plugin look aesthetically pleasing, and the graphic editing tools make it even more interesting. I was always interested in creating simple content that would improve SEO, and Google story with WordPress plugin are exactly what I wanted. See my first Google story right here.

If you would like to try it out, you can download the plugin.

Are you using Google Stories to promote your business?