Visual Stories - a new SERP feature in Google search results

Two weeks ago, I read an article written by Brodie Clark about a new feature in Google Mobile results called Visual Stories (which is mainly a collection of Web Stories). After a long period of testing, it looks like Google is now displaying this feature more prominently in mobile results from the US.

Find out below how popular this Visual Stories feature is in the Google search results and how you can track your own keywords that show up for this feature with AWR.

Here’s a quick peek at what the new Web Stories SERP feature looks like in Advanced Web Ranking:

Here you can see that the Web Stories feature appears on both keywords, but the selected website actually ranks within one of the Web Stories for the keyword “seo tool”, because it is shown in green color.

When you click on this icon, you will be presented with the Top Sites report, in which you can see all the Web Stories that appear in the SERP along with some useful information about their position and how far along they are displayed in the results:

For even more detailed information, click on the “View SERP” button at the top, which will show how many Web Stories were actually found in the SERP, where they are located and what they look like:

How do I find out which keywords have Visual Stories in Google search results?

To find out which of your keywords show the new Visual Stories feature, just go to Ranking -> Keywords in Advanced Web Ranking and add a SERP Features filter that includes Web Stories:

This will show you all the keywords that have Web Stories in their Google search results.

To see just the keywords that you rank for with a Web Story, select your website in the filter above.

How popular is the Visual Stories feature in Google search results?

Currently, the new Visual Stories feature appears only in mobile search results in the US. There have been some significant amounts of testing in India and Canada, so you should expect to see Web Stories appear in the Google search results in more countries in the future.

Our Google Organic CTR Study, which looks at data from Google Search Console for millions of keywords shows that this feature is currently not very popular in Google search results. Less than 1% of searches in our study show this feature:

The average CTR for the Web Stories results is also pretty low, at around 4%. This is probably because the average position in which Web Stories appear in the Google search results is around position 6, which is well below the fold for most mobile devices.

From what I’ve seen, most of the Web Stories results show up more than 2,000 pixels down the page, so there needs to be a significant amount of scrolling involved to reach them.

That does not mean that Google will not change things in the future, making this feature appear more prominently and in higher positions. We’ll monitor things for you so you can always be on top of your search results. Keep an eye on our free SEO tools for more information.

Now it’s time to hear what you think.

Were any of these findings surprising? Or maybe you have a question?

Either way, write me on Twitter and let me know your thoughts.