Web Stories, formerly called AMP stories, is visual storytelling to create visual narratives with engaging animations and tappable interactions. You can find more information related to Web Stories and its use cases here. Web Stories is crucial because it creates Instagram like stories, and it places these stories directly within web search results. So for content publishers like us at NoCodeJournal, we can create bite-sized content and get placement within Search Results. In this article, we explore one of Web Stories’ leaders, a company coming from Pune India called as Visual Stories.
Good stories are memorable, and that’s why storytelling is essential. However, in this digital era, where everything goes fast, another thing that also important is how you deliver or display your story. It is not enough to write your story verbally on your website. It would be best if you published it engaging visual format to enjoy and understand it easily. Here is why you need Web Stories or (Accelerated Mobile Pages) Stories. You must already know about Instagram Stories and how satisfying it is to keep looking at your friends’ stories. Web Stories’ existence makes it possible to share text, images, and videos in the slideshow format optimized for mobile devices, just like Instagram Stories. The difference is that these stories are present as a web page so that Google will discover them in the search result. Web Stories also won’t be disappearing after 24 hours.
Now let’s get to know Visual Stories, a NoCode web stories builder that can help you create web stories easily. The founder, Jalinder Autade, is a full stack developer and the CEO of Buzzle Software Solutions, the parent company of Visual Stories, based in Pune, India. He created Visual Stories since AMP technology has been introduced by Google for more than ten years and followed by web stories, which has become more popular these last two years. Visual Stories is not only a tool provider but also a content platform.
Features
For users to create Web Stories using Visual Stories, users must be associated with a website. It could be an existing website or a new website created by Visual Stories. For the current website, users can get the Web Stories to feature on a website (stories.yourwebsite.com) or in a subfolder the website (yourwebsite.com/stories). This minisite will be a Progressive Web App (PWA) and host all the Web Stories that users create. A PWA is like a blend of a website and a mobile app. Once users create Web Stories, it will get published on their website and stay there. Interestingly, it is also SEO friendly and monetizable as Google now has a carousel of Visual Stories in its search results.
If users don’t have a website yet, they can create the Web Stories on a subdomain of VisualStories.com or a new domain. Visual Stories has several subdomains based on the category, such as travel.visualstories.com and food.visualstories.com. Other than this, there is also a Visual Stories Network, a collaboration of multiple sites. Users can join the websites there to publish their Web Stories, and it is allowed to post one Web Stories to various websites so that the content can reach more audiences.
Then users can start to create a story by selecting the pre-designed template. Visual Stories has a free library that provides over a million pictures, music, and videos, but users can upload their images and videos. Other features include a call-to-action button and built-in animations. While working on their Web Stories, users can add their team members to work together with them. If users want to monetize their Web Stories, they need to get an AdSense account. The ads will be displayed after the audience goes through several pages, and the content in the users’ Web Stories won’t be disturbed.
How It Works
One of the clients who have been on boarded by Visual Stories is Thomas Cook India. So Thomas Cook India has stories on its website that display its travel deals and destinations and promotes them. There is also a possibility to create web stories, and promote on Visual Stories as it has has its content platform, and it can display these stories as a part of its content carousel.
In the future Visual Stories also will have the ability to connect a Google AdSense account and monetize these stories. The same can be done by sharing web stories as a part of Visual Stories content carousel or even on the client’s website. The minimum web stories created for this to kick in will be 50 web stories.
So the general monetization criteria for a published text-based article the same rules work for web stories. The ranking requirements and all other SEO activities which apply to articles on the website, a similar thing is applied to this to the web stories.
Client Examples
VacationJoy is a travel-based content website and story carousel which uses Visual Stories to create and promote travel-related content and lists for worldwide travel. You can find the same at https://vacationjoys.app/
WhatAHotel is a Hotel booking service and website that allows travel to find hotel deals and book accommodation worldwide. Visual stories have again helped WhatAHotel in creating visually engaging destination stories for their preferred location. You can view some all of the stories at https://stories.whatahotel.com/
Pricing
Until December 2020, all the services in Visual Stories will be free. Later, there will be two pricing plans: the free plan and the paid or revenue share plan. Users will get several features by choosing the paid plan like ad optimization, monetization, guest blogging, and SEO guidance. Users also can get a 75% share from the ad revenue.
All in all, Visual Stories offers a complete solution for you to deliver your story engagingly and appeal to a broader audience. Either you are a content marketer, individual writer, or a brand owner, this NoCode platform will benefit you.