Google Web Stories WordPress Plugin Improved With Embedding Capabilities

Recently with the release of v1.5 of the Stories Editor, Google has updated its official Web Stories plugin for WordPress, allowing users to embed Web Stories into their existing site easily.

Thousands of content creators and publishers use Web Stories as a great way to bring enhanced experiences to their users. Though the Web Stories plugin launch offered robust creation tools for creating stories and Google products, users were not permitted to embed the content they have created. But now, with the recent update, embedding Web Stories on web pages has become much easier. WordPress site owners can create Web Stories, easily embed them using the same tool, and embed Web Stories from other sites.

Embedding Web Stories In your website

The new release of the 1.5 version plugin update not only provides easier embedding abilities but also makes it possible to:

• Embed Web Stories into a versatile Web Stories block
• Incorporate Web Stories into the theme customization process
• Integration with Classic Editor

However, integrating Web Stories into your content strategy allows users to:

• Embed their own Web Stories or Web Stories created by other publishers into their content. This helps them enhance the quality of their content strategy as it allows users to take advantage of both original and third-party story experiences.
• Expand their traffic sources by combining organic traffic from Google products with direct traffic from the origin and social sharing.

Embedding Web Stories into a versatile Web Stories block (Gutenberg Block)

For embedding the Stories on your WordPress-powered content site, start by inserting a Web Stories block. The block will provide the site owners three options for embedding stories into a post or page: 

• Latest Stories: It displays the most recent stories along with filtering and sorting options.
• Single Story: It embeds a single story by providing its URL.
• Selected Stories: It exhibits a list of handpicked stories.

Web Design agencies allow site owners to choose how they want their Web Stories to be displayed from these three options: a carousel, a grid, or a list. Each layout option provides additional settings to give the users fine-grained control over how embedded stories appear. With this new Web Stories block, the stories can be displayed anywhere where blocks can be used – this includes the upcoming full site editing feature in WordPress.

As the ecosystem continues to evolve and move steadily towards Gutenberg-based themes, the new editing feature would give users the ability to edit all site elements using Gutenberg blocks. In addition, more users will get direct access to the Stories format, which may inspire more site owners to use Web Stories.

To bring the power of storytelling to your site, the Google Web Stories WordPress plugin provides built-in integrations for all WordPress core default themes. Several third-party themes, including Astra theme, Neve theme, and Newspack project – an all-in-one publishing platform- announced their integration of Web Stories into their theme.

Web stories appearance

Web Stories will appear in Google search and Discover to find the site owner’s content across Google. It will be great for a website to dominate the first page of search results with Web Stories and traditional web content.

Currently, Web Stories appear in Google Search and Discover in the US, India, and Brazil. John Mueller, the Search Advocate at Google, stated that Web Stories would be expanded to more countries if more sites start to use them. The site owners should consider the quality of Web Stories when it comes to appearing in search results or better rely on a professional web development company, who will certainly put you in line or even ahead of your competitors with this new update.

While considering this update, Google announced that the site owners should never use Web Stories as a teaser for other content. If they are being used so, then Google will stop ranking such low-quality Web Stories. So instead of that, bring the power of the Stories format to your content strategy and unleash your creativity with the creative capabilities of the Web Stories editor for WordPress and the completely revamped and versatile Gutenberg block.