A Web Stories or Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) stories seem to be on the rise these days. A Web Story is a visual storytelling format in Google Search results that immerses the user in a tap-through full-screen experience. Facebook and Instagram stories have been a trend to people who uses social media. They post their day to day like a diary of activities since it is only available to the eyes of the public for 24 hours. Basically, web stories are same with Instagram stories, but these stories are presented as a web page and will appear through Google search results. The presence of web stories makes it possible for you to share text, images, and videos into slideshow format optimized for mobile devices that won’t be disappearing after 24 hours.
One powerful side of web stories is that it can capture people’s attention within second through interactive visually rich content. The AMP Project was first announced by Google in 2015 and finally introduced in 2018. Several huge media outlets, such as The Washington Post, BBC, and CNN have been using Web Stories format to deliver news and information. Today, everyone can easily create web stories of their own with different purposes with the help of the NoCode web stories creation tools. Some examples of the tools are Visual Stories, Ampstor, MakeStories, Newsroom Studio, and StorifyMe.
1. Visual Stories (visualstories.com)
VisualStories was founded by Jalinder Autade, who is based in Pune, India. VisualStories is not only a tool provider for creating web stories, but it is also a content platform. In order to start with it, you must be associated with a website. It could be an existing website or a new website created by VisualStories. Then you can start to create a story by selecting the pre-designed template, and add pictures and videos that you want. Another option is selecting media from Visual Stories’ free library. Visual Stories allows you to monetize your web stories by connecting it to an AdSense account, so you may get a 75% from the ad revenue. The ads will be displayed after the audience goes through several pages. Aside from publishing it on your own website, you can also publish it through VisualStories Network, a collaboration of multiple sites. All services in Visual Stories will be free until December 2020 and later, there will be 2 pricing plans: the free plan and the paid or revenue share plan. Several features that you will get by choosing the paid plan are ad optimization, monetization, guest blogging, and SEO guidance. We did do a detailed story on Visual Stories which can be found here.
2. Ampstor (ampstor.co)
Ampstor is a NoCode platform which allows people to build web stories. It was co-founded by Anita Kikovska since February2019. The web stories are hosted on the internet as a web page and can be integrated into other apps. The service provided by Ampstor is totally free.There are many pre-designed templates which you can choose and before you choose a template, you can also preview it to see how does it look like indifferent type of screens and devices. You can start to make your web stories by selecting media from libraries. Once you have done, you have several options on where to upload your web stories. You can publish it on Ampstor domain, web flow site, webpage, or social medias like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Ampstor also has features which enable you to check the SEO metatags and Google Analytics result.
3. MakeStories(makestories.io)
MakeStories offers a NoCode tool as well to build web stories for free and in a simple way. It was founded by Pratik Ghela in 2018 based in India. You can start to create your web stories from the scratch or choose a template from more than 300 pre-build templates that are available. MakeStories provide an unlimited library of free fonts, media, elements, audio, animations, and many more. There are more than 800 ready to use Google fonts. There is also an option to create call-to-action buttons and set the SEO. After you have finished, you can preview it first and publish your web stories in a web story format or export it as a video for social medias. If you want to publish it in a web story format, you can publish it to your WordPress,onl.st short link, via FTP, export to Zip, widget embedding, or iFrame. Another feature offered by MakeStories is the AdServer feature to set up your own web stories’ ads and integrate them within any story.
4. Newsroom Studio (nws.ai)
Knowing that AMP Stories has a huge SEO opportunity, Newsroom Studio presents to be the mobile first storytelling platform. It is mostly used by news channel to help them deliver stories in an interactive way and brands. However, it also can be used by individual content creators. There are 4 paid packages that you can choose, specifically designed for your purposes. The Solo Strike package for individual content creators cost $7 per month, the Starter package which is ideal for new publisher is $59 per month, the Publisher Pro for larger teams and established companies cost $349 per month, and the Enterprise package starts from $4,999 per month. Newsroom Studio is a complete tool and easy to use as it equips you with many presets and medias from Getty Images. To boost engagement with your audience, you can also create an interactive content, such as quiz, polling, call-to-action button, and suggesting further reading. After you have published your web stories, you can monitor the analytics like story impressions, unique users, time on story, etc.
5. StorifyMe(storifyme.com)
Another NoCode tool to build web stories is StorifyMe. It comes with several packages that are designed for individuals, startup, company, or enterprise. For individuals, there are free pricing plan, Basic Plan costs $29.95 per month, and Premium Plan costs $99.95 per month. Meanwhile, the price for Startup, Enterprise, and Company plan are $499, $1,499, and $4,999 per month. StorifyMe is best to use for retailers who want to boost traffic in search results and create engaging content for maximizing the purchase experience, publishers who want to publish news and stories in a more engaging way, and marketers who want to capture customers’ attention through interesting content. StorifyMe is equipped with many pre-designed templates, rich media library, interactive elements, and branding tools. Then you can embed your stories and publish it to social media or your own domain. To maximize your web stories creation, there is also the analytics overview to check on your audience, as well as deep story analysis, engaging elements analytics, and 3rd party analytics integration. However, the features that you can use come differently depending on which pricing plan you choose.
These five (5) NoCode tools mentioned above is a must try offers. If there are other you would like to point to us for us to review or try, please reach out to us at using the Contact Form.