Frequently Asked Questions

“Guest Blog” means that a user can join website(s) from niches of his/her choice and submit Web Stories (earlier known as AMP Stories) on the same. The guest blogging feature allows you to post content on one or more websites in the Visual Stories Network, an ever-expanding network of websites that are powered by the Visual Stories technology. They form a common userbase and harness the Web Stories format.

Refer to the list of websites in the Visual Stories Network and select an appropriate website for your Story.

Signing up with Visual Stories lets you create content in several different categories that range from animals, travel and lifestyle to technology, finance and health. These categories are websites in themselves, created on subdomains of Visual Stories. Examples:

• https://travel.visualstories.com/
• https://interiordecor.visualstories.com/
• https://photography.visualstories.com/

Signing up once, you can create Stories in any of the categories with the Visual Story Builder tool and access a library of images, videos and music that can be included in your Stories for free. Learn more in Niches to Create Stories.

• A Story should have multiple slides.
• Add content that is related to the topic of your Story.
• Use images, videos and music to enhance your content.
• In each slide, you can add multiple elements like text, image, video, link and HTML.
• To add an element to a slide, click on the ‘+’ sign beside the toolbar below that particular slide and select the element.
• You can add multiple elements in a slide. Drag and drop elements to align them in ways that suit your Story. Place them in such a way that they do not superimpose each other.
• Select the background color and text color such that the image/video is visible and the text is readable.
• You can customize your Story at Story-level and element-level. Customize each element using the options in the toolbar below the slide. For Story-level customizations, click the ‘Story Design’ icon that appears to the left of settings icon in top-menu. Story-level customizations will apply to the whole Story but element-level customizations will override them.
• You can also add a background music to your Story by selecting an audio file from the free music library. To access the music library, click the music icon in the right-menu of Story Design.

Yes. Here are the character limits for -

• Story Title – 70
• Story Description – 240
• Card Text – 360

Yes, we accept submissions in the following languages: Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Vietnamese, Chinese.

Yes, provided that they are authentic. Spamming the Story with too many links is discouraged and it may lead to the Story being rejected. To add a link in a slide, click on ‘Link’ in the toolbar and you will be able to fill the link URL and the button text. The button can be customized using options in the link customizations.

No, a Story is not shareable from the “Preview”. A Story will be shareable once it is published.

• A Story should have minimum 3 slides.
• It shouldn’t have too many links or spammy links.
• Your content should be original and not plagiarized.
• Use images/videos that you are authorized to use legally.
• Don’t spam your content with keywords.
• Ensure that there is no text in the background image as it hampers the readability of the slide text.
• Submit your Story only after it is completed.

Yes. You can take your Story back for editing after it has been submitted. However, you cannot edit your Story if it has already been taken for editing by an editor.

A Story will be rejected if:

• Your content is plagiarized, copyrighted work of others or is already published elsewhere.
• Your uploaded images/videos are copyrighted by others or if you are not authorized to use the uploaded images/videos (legally or ethically).
• Your content, in any case, endorses/promotes any kind of violence and/or obscenity.
• Your Story lacks sufficient content. In that case, it will be sent to you for re-evaluation stating the required changes, after which you can resubmit the Story.

Refer to our submission guidelines for further details.

Depending on the quality of content and length of your Story, it may take anywhere between 2 to 8 days for your Story to be published.

Your Stories will be visible on the website that you submit a particular Story to.

Go to visualstories.com/@yourhandle to view your profile. Or Click ‘User Profile’ in the overflow menu on the right.

Yes, you can. Click Settings icon. Click Website. In ‘Change Website’, select the website and click Submit.

Yes, you can edit the Story once the Story is published on the website. You will need to forward it again to the moderator, who will then publish it. Changes made to the story will reflect only after it is published.

If you wish to contact the editorial team in case of any difficulties while creating a Story or regarding any other queries, email us at hello@visualstories.com.

You can get Web Stories on a subdomain of your existing website or in a sub-directory of your existing website.

Your website will not be approved if the subject of the website is one of these or if the website’s name implies any of the following subjects:

• Medicinal drugs, medications
• Health supplements
• Acai Berry
• CBD products
• Steroids
• Hemp oil
• Diets, Diet Pills
• Astrology
• Debt Relief
• MLM
• Hacking
• Ringless Voicemail
• Reverse Phone Lookup
• Gambling (casinos, roulette, poker)
• Background check
• Free Music or Movie Downloads
• Animal Experiments or Animal Abuse
• Substance Abuse
• Drug Abuse
• Marijuana
• Weed
• Addictions (will be approved if website is about overcoming addictions)
• Sexual health
• ED
• Suicide, Violence, Offense, Weapons
• Racism
• Escort Services
• Dating

No, our technical team will take care of all the setup. No coding skills are required on your part.

Yes, you can monetize the website you create through revenue sharing with your own AdSense account.

In a sentence or two, the website’s intent and subject should be described. This description gets applied as the meta description of your website and is applied by default as the description of your PWA. The character limit for PWA description is 132.

• Website description can be edited from the website’s Homepage.
• The PWA description can be edited from ‘Manage Web App’.

Your Stories will be published and seen on the website where you create them.

• You can get free content on your website by enabling Guest Blogging feature.
• In Manage Web App, enable Guest Blogging.
• On the profile page of your website (Example:https://visualstories.com/apps/@inspihub), there will be a button ‘Join as Contributor’, if guest blogging is enabled.
• Writers/Guest bloggers will be able to join your website and post content.
• Your website will have an editorial workflow, which means you will be able to monitor the content being posted by guest bloggers. You will be able to decide whether to approve of the content posted on your website.
• Thus, by enabling guest blogging and allowing authors to join your website, you can get free content on your website.

Yes, you can guest blog on any website in the Visual Stories Network; the website should have the guest blogging feature enabled.

It's the expected behavior for a PWA. We use amp-install-service-worker and it's a standard in PWA building. A PWA is offline by nature and takes some time to update itself. So it’ll take some time for the homepage to have the link to the new Story. In our tests, we have found that it sometimes takes even an hour.

Refer to: Services Offered by Visual Stories.

The highlights of the package are:

• You can get Web Stories written for as little as $12 per Story.
• Images and videos will be included as required by the content of your Story.
• You could take the Jump Start Package, which includes SEO guidance, content writing services, and content marketing services, apart from technical help in setting up your website. The total price is $300.

For further information, refer to Content Services.

You can use images from our free library or upload your own images and add them in your Stories.

To add an image from the library, click image icon from toolbar, click library and you will see an image library on the right. Click on the image you wish to add to your slide and you will see it added.

In the library, you will see the tabs ‘My Images’, ‘VS’ and ‘Unsplash’. Click ‘My Images’ to access the images from your library (the images you uploaded). Images in the free library are accessible from the VS and Unsplash tabs.

You can access a library of vertical videos (Google Earth videos included), that can be added in your Stories for free. You can also upload your own videos and add them in your Stories.

To add a video from the library, click video icon in the toolbar, then click library. You will see a video library on the right. Click on the video you wish to add to your slide and you will see it added to the slide.

Yes, you can upload your images/videos as long as they are not explicit, obscene, offensive, someone else’s copyrighted work, or trademarked. These uploaded images/videos will be added to your personal library and will be accessible only to you.

The uploaded images can be in .jpg/.jpeg/.png format.

You'll have to crop the uploaded image(s) to the Portrait size. Size requirement is 928 px or higher (height).

To upload an image, click the image icon in the toolbar, then click ‘Upload’. You will see the ‘Add Image’ interface on the right. Crop the image, change Alt text if required and click Upload. If you wish to credit the image source, switch ‘Show Image Credit’ ON and fill in the credit text and credit URL.

• The uploaded videos can be in .mp4/.webm/.ogg format.
• The videos should be less than 10 MB, and can be of 30 minutes’ duration at the most. However, as recommended by AMP, the video file size should be less than 4 MB. Prefer smaller files for faster downloads.
• You can upload portrait, landscape and square videos. Portrait videos are preferred.

To upload a video, click the video icon in the toolbar, then click Upload. You will see the ‘Add Video’ interface on the right. Select a video file from your device, capture a snapshot, fill Title and Keywords and click Upload. The snapshot will be used as a poster image; the image which is displayed till the video loads.

Element-Level: If you hover on a particular element’s icon in the toolbar, you will see the customization options for that layer. Click on the option to apply that particular customization to the element.

The images below are examples of text customization options.

The image below displays how to change the background color of a slide.

The image below shows how to drag and drop elements to place or align them on a slide.

Here is an example of tilting the text and selecting font family.

Story-Level: To access Story-level customizations, click the icon to the left of Settings icon. You will see three icons on the right; music, color and SEO.

Click the color icon to apply color settings to your Story.

Click SEO icon to edit the Story title and description.

Note: Customizations selected through Story Settings apply to the entire Story. Element-level customizations override Story-level customizations.