Best Practices for Creating Web Stories in 2023 + examples

Web Stories have become one of the most powerful tools for marketers in recent years. They are highly engaging, visually appealing, and easily shareable through social media channels. As online consumers demand more interactive and personalized content, web stories are expected to become an essential part of every business's marketing strategy in 2023.

In this blog post, we'll discuss the best practices for creating web stories and showcase some inspiring examples along the way and help you come up with some great ideas for yourself.

The Practice of Crafting a Compelling Narrative

If you want to ensure a great interaction you should definitely give storytelling a try. It is a crucial part of the human experience. It is natural to us and the easiest way for your audience and potential customers to grasp information about your brand or product.

You can utilize narratives in mainly two ways: in video stories — Shorts, or in a set of story slides. Either way, you are granted success. Make sure to think it through and plan your web or in-app stories. While crafting the narrative, firstly you should have a hook. Spark your customers' interest with a captivating question or statement. If you know your target well, it shouldn’t be a problem to think of something that they’ll be curious about. Also, your web stories should have a steady flow. You could think of it as a typical plot even with rising action, climax, and resolution which would be your product.

Captivate Your Audiences Attention From the Start

There’s not much time to catch the attention of your customers. You’ll have just a few seconds to accomplish that and a maximum of 8. Retention in the first few frames is critical to keeping users engaged throughout the rest of your web stories. Make those first frames count by using attention-grabbing visuals and phrases.

When we talk about best practices, we cannot forget to mention the significance of visual appeal. One of the primary strengths of web stories is their visual nature. Leverage this advantage by using high-quality and visually striking images, videos, and animations.

This is the part where engaging elements come in handy too. They’re the right tool for directing your potential customer’s attention toward a specific product or for your audience toward a specific issue you want to address.

Keep it Short and Sweet

Your audience doesn’t have time to spend on long, in-depth content and especially if it’s in a story format. If they wanted, they would’ve just read an article. They’re swiping through stories to save up time. That’s what stories are there for.

A rightfully favored practice proposes to keep content concise and to the point. Use short sentences and statements but not at the cost of the entirety of the information. And don’t forget the small portions that allow your audience to progress through the narrative effortlessly. Today, even stories should be divided into smaller bite-sized segments.

The ideal length of a web story is between 15 to 30 seconds. You can enable auto-play so that your customers don’t even have to swipe or tap for the story slide to change. These short snippets are perfect for capturing the viewer's attention and keeping them engaged. Include the most essential information and visuals to convey your message.

Don’t overlook SEO

One of the best practices suggests optimizing your web stories too for search engines. 

You can imagine web stories like typical web pages. Like in any other case of SEO, conduct keyword research and include the relevant ones in your headings, captions, and alt text for images.

With solutions such as StorifyMe, it is quite simple to manage your web stories’ SEO. With just a few clicks, your stories will be optimized. And, there is no prior coding experience needed.

And as always, keep in mind that people who watch your stories will be the main determinants for your ranking — so make sure to create quality and engaging stories. With the StorifyMe editor, doing so should not be a problem!

Have fun!

To enhance user engagement, incorporate interactive elements into your web stories. Use engaging elements and stickers for your web stories. Use interactive elements such as polls, quizzes, and clickable links to engage the viewers.

And lastly, not a commonly advised practice… In the end, don’t forget to have fun. It is expected to make web stories without losing customers' needs out of sight, but it is oftentimes forgotten that it should be fun. If you’re finding your stories interesting, your audience will too.