When it comes to creating content for SEO, written content and infographics usually snap up all the attention.
Nowadays, however, video is just as critical for your SEO success.
Incorporating videos into your SEO strategy can unlock plenty of direct and indirect benefits, enabling your website to dominate SERP or Search Engine Result Page for relevant keywords in the long run.
In this comprehensive guide, we discuss how any brand – whether in healthcare, finance or SaaS – can use video content to improve its SEO.
SEO is much more than just about getting websites to rank higher on SERP, or bringing organic traffic.
In the end, sales and revenue are what matter the most to businesses. And this is what modern-day SEO is about.
“The job of an SEO (professionals) isn’t necessarily to increase rankings, but rather to increase online sales/revenue for the client,” says Neil Patel.
So when you’re looking to improve your SEO with videos, the focus shouldn’t only be on improving ranking and organic traffic. You should also keep an eye on the conversion rate and the subsequent revenue.
This shift in approach is essential to drive maximum ROI from your SEO efforts with video integration.
SEO is just as much about conversion and revenue.
As mentioned earlier, videos in your SEO strategy can bring many direct and indirect benefits. Here are some of those:
Did you know that Google now shows video thumbnails in 26 percent of search results?
As online video consumption keeps rising, it’s fair to say videos on SERP will become more prevalent in the coming years.
Recommended Read: Video Marketing Statistics 2021: What The Numbers Say (Updated)
This is a great opportunity for brands to take up video space on search result pages, which is relatively less competitive; it’s an opportunity to improve their discoverability.
Also, thumbnails on SERP, which are a “rich snippet” result, get a much higher click-through rate (CTR). So with a little effort, your video SEO strategy can bring you much greater ROI.
The quality of backlinks your website gets is now more important than the quantity. Further, the backlinks ought to appear natural and relevant.
Videos can help your website get many natural and relevant backlinks from top websites, including the authority brands.
Of course, the quality of the video must be outstanding to make this possible. But if the video is exciting and engaging, with high entertainment or utility value for example FAQ videos, it is more likely to get shared and linked.
Offering embed code and prompting readers to share the video can further help your case in getting more backlinks.
The more (high-quality) backlinks your website gets, the better it can rank on SERP for relevant keywords.
Did you know backlinks are one of the two most important search ranking factors? (Content is the other one.)
This is one of the most popular benefits of using video for SEO.
If you include a video on a landing page, there’s a good chance people will watch it. And if they do, this will increase the time they spend on the page and the overall session duration.
Session duration is a key search ranking factor that helps search engines measure the quality, relevance, and UX aspects of a page. The longer a person stays on the website, the better signal it sends to the search engines.
Additionally, the longer a person stays on a website, the higher the probability of conversion.
So start focusing on the average session duration of your website. (Go to your Google Analytics and check the existing average session duration.) Is it low? High?
Start including relevant videos on your pages, in between the content, to get people to stay back on the website for longer.
A video on a landing page can increase its conversion rate by as much as 80 percent. It is one of the easiest ways to drive conversion.
Whether it’s a squeeze page to collect visitors’ email or a product page, include relevant video. Make sure these videos complement your offerings or value proposition and deliver an impactful message that gets people to take action.
An animated marketing video can be a great fit here. They are attention-grabbing, highly engaging, can tell better stories, and effectively encourage people to act.
Brand affects SEO in a significant way.
There are several brand signals that influence search ranking— including branded searches, brand name anchor text, brand mentions, and brand presence on social media platforms.
In fact, there’s another direct correlation between brand and SEO.
When you search for something on Google, you’re more likely to click on results whose name you recognize and trust. So, building a strong brand identity can boost your CTR, which is one of the vital search ranking factors. This can further improve your search ranking.
Videos bring excellent brand-building opportunities. From using watermarks to publishing a unique infographic animation video that stands you out in the crowd, such tactics can improve your visibility; they can make your brand more impressionable and easy to remember. This, in the long run, can bolster your SEO efforts, helping your website rank higher on SERP for a wide range of most competitive keywords.
Still, wondering “is video good for SEO”?
It is! And it’s time you start thinking of video and SEO in the same context.
Now you know the benefits of video SEO strategy, let’s jump on to how you can use videos to drive more SEO ROI.
There are no defined rules for this “how”.
The SEO landscape is dynamic where, beyond the fundamentals, different things work differently for different businesses.
So, when it comes to creating a video SEO strategy, it depends on your own business needs, requirements, and existing metrics. The process includes a lot of research, split testing, and trial and error before you have an effective strategy that delivers optimum returns.
To help you get a head start in creating one such strategy, here are a few tips:
No marketing strategy can ever be made without considering the pain points of the target audience.
What kind of videos should you publish? Which page should you embed them on? What should be the messaging of the video? Such questions can only be answered if you’re aware of your audience’s pain points and their overall needs and preferences.
So do the research and find out what concerns your target audience; what problems they have that they need solutions for. Then, accordingly, create relevant videos that are meaningful and resourceful for them.
The importance of great thumbnails cannot be overstated. It can make or break the deal for you.
Make sure the thumbnails of your videos that appear on Google SERP are striking and unique that piques interest. They should make the right first impression.
In recent times, animation has gotten very popular in the marketing landscape. And there are many good reasons for that.
Appealing and engaging with high retention value, animated videos assure excellent results and desired ROI.
Recommended Read: How Animated Videos Can Help Your Business in 2021?
So you can integrate animation into your video SEO strategy. There are many different types of animation; you have ample options to try, right from 2D and 3D to whiteboard, motion graphics, and more.
Instead of hiring people and building an in-house team, which can be expensive, you can consider hiring a specialist animated video production company.
Make sure the company has good experience and infrastructure to produce superior quality animation. Also, ensure they have previously worked with businesses like yours.
Having such experts by your side will also extend strategic support for you. For example, they can guide you on what kind of animated videos you should publish and how you can build a robust video SEO strategy.
This is one of those details that play a critical role.
Imagine embedding a great video at the bottom of the page only to see in your analytics that visitors don’t scroll to the end.
Where you place or position your video on the page is very important.
Ideally, above-the-fold is much preferred. But in the end, it depends on the context of the video, its purpose, and various other factors. (For instance, embedding an animated company video, which is meant for brand-building, at the top of an educational guide isn’t a good idea.)
So take your time to think things through regarding the video’s placement on the page.
Don’t forget the transcript
There are several reasons to include the transcript of the video on the page. (Much like how Moz does with its Whiteboard Friday videos.)
One, there would always be some people who would prefer reading to watching a video, especially if you’re targeting a demographic that doesn’t have access to fast internet.
Second, the transcript increases the discoverability of that page. Search engines can’t tell what the video is about. So providing them the context with text increases the chances of better ranking.
Third, video transcripts also provide an opportunity for keywords optimization. You get more content to include relevant keywords, which, again, improves the page’s ranking.
So don’t forget to include the transcript of the video on the page. This is more important if the page is created or solely focused on the video.
Repurposing content is one of the most effective content marketing tactics. When you start looking at video and SEO in the same frame, one of the common challenges you will face is where to begin.
A simple answer is: With your existing blog posts.
Pick some of the pillar blog posts you have published– ones that get good traffic and are more rewarding in terms of conversion– and repurpose them into videos.
How?
We have created a separate guide for this. Check out A Comprehensive Guide to Repurposing Content Into Videos
You can’t include an animated company video that promotes your brand on an informational or educational page. The video isn’t relevant to the context of the page.
Similarly, the topic of the video should be relevant to the topic of the page. The keywords the page is optimized with should make sense to the video as well.
‘Relevancy’ is the key here you must prioritize.
A discontinuity between visitors’ intent and different parts of the page (including the video) may hurt your search ranking. It may even hurt your brand since the visitors didn’t get what they came for.
“What type of video should I make?”
There are countless options.
You can make explainer videos that talk about your product.
You can create a video that tells your brand’s story.
You can create educational videos on topics that are relevant to your offering.
You can even have video testimonials, which are more effective in driving conversion than written recommendations.
In all, try videos with different purposes; to sell, promote, convert, and educate. Find out which videos bring you good ROI in the short and long run.
This is very basic and one of the fundamentals of search engine optimization.
Take your time to do thorough keywords research. Here’s an advanced keyword research tutorial by Brian Dean:
Find the right keywords for the page where the video will be included. Incorporate those keywords in the meta tags, transcript, alt tags, titles, and overall content on the page
This is similar to having a great thumbnail. They work together to compel people to click and watch the video.
So come up with a great title for the page, as well as for the video.
Go through the video and page titles of some of your successful competitors. Analyze those titles and find out what has worked for them. Then use the same insights in your case.
Website loading speed, which can be checked using tools like speed test PTCL, is among the most crucial search ranking factors. The faster the page loads, the better it can rank on SERP
Did you know the highest e-commerce conversion rates occur on pages that have a load time of 0-2 seconds?
Including a video on a page may increase its loading time. This is why the video should be optimized to load faster and seamlessly.
The video’s dimensions and overall size can influence the page’s loading speed; optimize them properly.
You can also use measures like asynchronous loading sequence to maintain the page's good loading speed.
Get together with your team of developers to ensure that every page that the video is embedded on, will load as quickly as possible.
No matter how good the content is, people may not have 19 minutes to watch that video.
So you have to be careful about the length of the video.
Generally, a promotional video shouldn’t be very long. But, on the other hand, educational videos can be decently long, as long as they are interesting and relevant to the target audience.
Creating buyer personas can provide you insights on the ideal length of the videos you should aim for. Going through analytics can help as well. For instance, if people are leaving mid-way when watching a long video, you might want to focus on a shorter video for SEO.
You can self-host the video on your server, or you can use video hosting platforms like YouTube and Vimeo for that.
Both have some pros and cons.
If you host the video on, say, YouTube, it will increase that video’s discoverability. However, when someone decides to link that video on their website, they may pick the YouTube link of the video and not the landing page’s link the video is embedded on. The same could be the problem when someone decides to share the video on social media. Since your URL/domain isn’t getting backlinked or shared, it doesn’t benefit you from the SEO point-of-video.
On the other hand, if you decide to self-host the video, it has some limitations. For one, Google SERP is dominated by YouTube videos; you will find relatively fewer videos on SERP hosted on other platforms. Further, hosting videos on your server may increase your hosting cost. Finally, hosting videos on top platforms like YouTube provides higher performance (in terms of loading speed and uptime value) and better analytics, which can be helpful for SEO.
So it’s important where and how you host your videos, as it can affect your video SEO strategy.
This is the most critical thing in this whole conversation, and it goes without saying.
The quality of the videos you include in your SEO strategy ought to be great. Don’t do it just for the sake of it. Put more thoughts into the process and ensure the videos check all the right boxes.
For help, consider hiring an animation production company like Broadcast2World. With a specialist team that has extensive experience in creating the best quality videos for some of the biggest brands across different industries. Get in touch with us today, and let’s create great animated videos that bolster your SEO efforts. Enjoy multiple revisions, transparent pricing, and a personalized experience.
There’s always room to improve and drive better results. So never settle for any specific type of video until you have found the right fit that delivers optimal ROI.
There are many options in terms of video style you can work with. Find out which one is better and then double-down on that.
Experimenting is essential to optimize marketing ROI.
The above-mentioned 15 tips will help you devise an effective video SEO strategy.
So, now you know whether or not “video is good for SEO” and “how video helps SEO,” it’s time to start planning and executing.
Create custom and incredible videos and take your SEO game to the next level.
If you have any questions or need help with video creation, contact us.
All the best!
US (732) 387-3864
US Office (Sales & Marketing)
371 Hoes Lane
Suite 200, Piscataway,
New Jersey - 08854
India Office (Production)
WeWork, 246, Udyog Vihar Phase 4
Gurugram
Haryana - 122016
SERVICES
ANIMATION STYLE
INDUSTRY
Copyright © 2024 Broadcast2World, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
No Comments Yet
Let us know what you think