How to use Video Content for Effective SEO

I think we can all admit that our time spent online has almost entirely cannibalized our every waking moment. 

Published On: November 19, 20215 min readCategories: Blog, Content, SEO

No longer are we just connecting when bored or looking for quick information. We are plugged in, all the time, every day, for our whole day! Every message alert, every scroll through our news feed; It feels strange to be further than arm’s length from our device of choice. 

Good marketers are overjoyed with this shift as they know communicating to their market is easier than ever before. Better marketers know that this means that any business that wants even a slight chance of being noticed in this new online ecosystem needs to up their game tremendously. Competition is fierce. It’s lion country out there.

One way a business can breathe new life into its marketing strategy is by leaning into the exploding popularity of video content on sites.

Online users no longer want to read large blocks of text! We want to be spoon-fed and entertained. Constantly and immediately. Video content is excellent for this.

It’s estimated that the average user spends roughly 100 minutes every single day consuming their online content via video. This is an astronomical increase of 19% compared with data from 2019. With this upwards curve firmly in place, a question that keeps surfacing is how video content could effectively be utilized for SEO purposes. Traditionally Video was thought of as the ultimate SEO “no man’s land” when it comes to ranking on Google’s results page. It is really difficult to know what Google looks for. In this article, we shed some light on using Video content as part of an effective SEO Strategy. Join us as we journey through this brave new world. 

What are the benefits of Video content for your SEO Strategy?

As we all know SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the strategy of effectively optimizing elements of your site, including the content used, to ultimately improve your page ranking on Google’s Search Engine Results page. 

The basis of SEO is aligning your content strategy with what the Search Engine’s algorithm is prioritizing. While we don’t always have transparency from Google to know exactly what they are looking for, we do know that video has the potential to be an extremely powerful tool for SEO. 

Here are some of the benefits:

  1. Much higher click-through rate

By adding unique video content to your webpage, Google is likely to show a video thumbnail next to your search result when indexed. The thumbnail makes the result a “rich snippet”, and rich snippets tend to have much higher click-through rates than standard snippets.

  1. Better chance of ranking

Google owns Youtube, and cross-promoting its various platforms and serving up the most accurate, and engaging video content is very important to them. It has long been rumored that Google prioritizes search results with video, (particularly youtube videos) when ranking search results. 

  1. Increase engagement and time on page

Video helps metrics that we know Google takes into consideration for ranking. Some of the most important metrics for SEO are the time users spend on a page, and how engaged they were. It is reported that pages with video tend to keep people on a page twice as long compared to pages with no video.

  1. Increased Backlinks 

Video on a page will generally triple the number of websites that link back to your site. This is important as backlinks from other websites are still considered one of the most important ranking factors Google uses to determine who ranks. If you want to find out who links to your site, read our blog article on locating backlinks.

  1. Allows for a Personal connection

One benefit that is a bit more indirect when it comes to SEO is that video allows a brand to make a personal connection with a user quickly. The user can see who the brand is, what it stands for, and what it offers leading to a higher level of user experience, which in turn leads to more engagement.

5 Ways to Optimize your Video content for SEO

  1. Include a Video Transcript

Adding a transcript of your video allows it to be viewed with captions showing. Not only does this make your video accessible to a larger audience, but it also makes your video more scrapable by Google’s search bots, as this is seen as additional text on-page.

  1. Choose an Engaging Thumbnail Image

Your Thumbnail Image is arguably more important than your title when it comes to getting people to click through. Humans are extremely visual. Your thumbnail image needs to sell your link as Interesting, relevant to the search, and engaging at first glance to reap the most rewards.

  1. Relevant on-page information

It is very important that the rest of the information on the page relates closely to the video featured. If the page is generic, and the video is just thrown on there with no relevance the chances of ranking is pretty low.

  1. Accurate Title and Description

Spending some time crafting an engaging video title and meta description that includes keywords your audience is searching for is crucial when it comes to increasing your chances to rank. Make sure you know how to refine search intent by using Negative keywords. Don’t just stuff the title and description with loads of keywords. Make sure the title and description are interesting.

  1. Make your Video the Main Focus 

Make sure your video is easy to find. If it is embedded far below the fold, or hidden among blocks of text your chances of it getting played diminishes tremendously. Instead, present it front and center as the first thing your audience sees when they click on a page.

Final thoughts

Much like the old song “Video killed the radio star” from the ’80s, the allure of communicating to an audience visually stays extremely engaging today. The modern internet user is constantly bombarded with information. Only the most engaging and entertaining will grab their attention.

Including Video content in your marketing strategy is crucial for an effective outcome.

Figuring out how to effectively navigate all the factors that come into play with your SEO can be daunting. Having a dedicated team of SEO specialists on your side can make all the difference. NAV43 are experts in the field of SEO. Give us a call. We would be happy to help.