No matter how fresh your content is if you are not creative enough to get the visitors’ attention you will find yourself at the last resort to catch the eye of visitors. WordPress web development company developer creators need to be extra creative and there was indeed a need for something that helps them to stand out to make the content looks alluring. There comes the WordPress web story. Web story is bite-sized parts of visual content stand out easily on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP), and their scanty nature feeds well to mobile users with small screens and short time. Google released a new WordPress plugin designed to make it easy for WordPress web development company OR hire dedicated WooCommerce Expert to merge Web Stories into your posts on 22nd of September 2020.
There is still so much fuss about the WordPress web stories as it has been little time after the release. So, in this article, we will be your tour guide for WordPress web stories. We will cover an understanding of web stories, Web Stories plugin features and many more explaining exactly how to use it to create beautiful, engaging content. Let’s dive in!
Understanding Web Stories
Before jump to the new WordPress plugin, let’s first understand what web stories are and why one should use them for the business.
Web stories are the visual representation of storytelling format for web content powered by Accelerate mobile page framework. In simpler words, social media platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook have its story section the same applies to the web stories. Web stories are a small representation of web content. Google named this concept as “snackable content” – prompt, attention seeker, easy-to-glimpse stories ideal for smartphones and on-the-go viewing:
How beneficial web stories can be for your business?
• Improve search engine optimization
• Improve the user experience of the website
• Encourage organic traffic
• Prime visibility for web stories as it will have the designated special segment at the top of Google SERPs
• Rank stories above on web searches, image searches, and the Google app.
• Grabe the attention as it will POP on a SERP
• Easy monetization as it provides full-screen immersive ads and affiliate links.
Web story creation WordPress plugin Introduction
The thing is creating web stories is not as easy as creating stories for social media as Instagram. It requires tons of knowledge and practice of coding and AMP. Introduction of the WordPress plugin has made it easier to design and publish the web stories, enable users to craft their content visually and open doors for publishers to work in this new medium.
WordPress web stories plugin is a simple drag-and-drop editor. It works on the principle of What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG). The plugin provides various in-built template designs to create stories according to your requirements. You can publish your story instantly once you are done designing the one.
Step by Step Process of designing the web stories for WordPress Plugin
Creating web stories for WordPress plugin is indeed a straightforward task, but it’s not as easy as eating a piece of cake. It still requires some process to follow. As being a WordPress web development company India, we have made it simpler for you. You just have to follow the steps mentioned over here.
Read More: How to develop a WordPress website as a SaaS
Step 1: Plugin Installation process
The most essential and basic task for creating your own Web Stories is to downloading and installing the plugin. Once you download the plugin, visit your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New and click on the “Upload button” at the top of the page. Upload the .zip file you have downloaded earlier and click on Install now. To activate the plugin, click on the active plugin.
Step 2: Web stories creation process
After successfully completing the installation and activation process, you can start creating stories for your business. To start creating your story, click on “Stories” in the WordPress sidebar. It will redirect you to the web stories dashboard. This dashboard will allow you to view and edit the Web Stories you’ve created. As it will your first story you can use any available template or click on “create a new Story”.
You can check out the inspirational sample story template by clicking into the Template tab. As of now, we will guide you to create the story from scratch without using the template to give you a broad idea about the creation process. On the top left corner of your dashboard, you will see the tab to create a new story. Click on that. This will redirect you to the editor screen of the blank web story.
The editor will show the current page is in the center. You will see the three panes on the left: image, text, and shape. All of them integrated with drag and drop functionality. You can drag any object you want from the panes to the editor. Select the option you have dropped on the editor and it will show you the Design pane on the right, where you can find editing options for that object. For example, we will create a cover slide for our Story. Select the image and click on set as background option will set the Image as a background picture. Now let’s add the heading block to provide the web story title. After that, let’s work on the design options to add a transparent background and modify the font to make the title pop.
The end result will show you the complete web story look. If you want to add another page click on the “Add Page button” in the center of the editor. You can be anywhere from 4 to 30 pages.
Step 3: Story Publication Process
The buttons on the top right corner allow you to save your draft preview it anytime you want. When you are designing the one, click on the publish button. It’s your call to make as if you want to view the Story right away or add it to a new post or want to work on something else dismissing the pop-up. Click on “Add to New Post” to design a new draft with your Web Story embedded.
That’s it with the basic tutorial of the WordPress web stories plugin, but you can always play with the options available to change the layouts and create something different every time.
Conclusion
If you are thinking to get started with the WordPress web stories plugin, there are some requirements you need to fulfill. As it requires a minimum WordPress Version of 5.3.1 and minimum PHP version of 5.6. Those are moderate requirements that should be in the range of the eternal majority of dynamic WordPress publishers.
The web stories WordPress plugin is now available to download at the WordPress plugin repository from 22nd Sept 2020 onwards. Or you can even easily install through your WordPress admin dashboard through the Plugin admin page. If you ever got confused in a midway do not hesitate to reach WordPress web development Companies India, as they have a team of experts to handle all the chores of your WordPress development.