Video marketing content has been booming on websites and social channels over the last few years. But how does a visual medium fit into your SEO strategy?
Traditionally, SEO has focused on written content and site usability. These days, video also deserves a seat at that table. Any content that helps users discover you in search engines and leads back to your website is vital to consider in your SEO strategy.
Video content offers another opportunity for indexing and a way to engage your audience on your site. With the right goals and strategy, it can be a vital part of modern SEO.
Video’s Role in SEO
Video is an integral part of your SEO strategy. Not only does video get rankings of its own on Google, but it also helps to enhance the overall experience on your website. Signs of a better website experience ensure your pages are more likely to rank higher (and convert!). Blogs that include video, for example, have a 53x higher chance of a first-page ranking.
To ensure video content generates a positive ROI, ensure it compliments the rest of your content and SEO strategy. Having clear goals before the production process is the key to generating ROI.
Set Clear Video SEO Goals
Clear goals are what make video content strategy and SEO strategy come together. When producing videos to use online, the first question is, “What result do I want to achieve?”
First, consider this from a high-level content perspective. At what point in their journey will potential customers see this content? Will it make them aware of your brand? Will it answer specific questions about products or services? Will it show them a demonstration of your product or service?
Then, consider how those answers fit into your SEO strategy. Do you want to build brand awareness with backlinks to your site and social media shares? Do you want to increase conversions and website engagement by aiding the buyer’s journey? Do you want to be a resource people turn to when they have questions?
Let’s talk about two goals–backlinks and conversions–and how those affect your video SEO strategy.
Generate Backlinks
Backlinks are links on another website that lead to your website. They show Google and other search engines that your website is a trusted authority source that others turn to for information. Increased authority makes your site more likely to rank higher in search results.
Engaging video content encourages more viewers to link to your page as a resource. Blogs, on average, get 3x more backlinks when they include videos.
Backlinks also improve brand awareness by bringing a new audience to your site.
Forge Apollo’s Evolution of the Bikini video campaign helped to drive backlinks and a boost in traffic to Breathless Resorts and Spas’ website. Major publications like Sports Illustrated, Buzzfeed, and Cosmopolitan provided a backlink when they shared the video.
Within the first six days of distribution, the video provided a 25% boost in organic website traffic. It also got over 360,5000 social comments, shares, and likes.
Creating content and a distribution strategy that encouraged backlinks was key to earning these results. Without that goal in mind, the strategy wouldn’t have come together.
Increase Website Conversions
The end goal of SEO and bringing more traffic to your website is usually to drive more conversions, leads, and revenue. By engaging website visitors, video content can help increase conversions and other metrics that help with SEO.
72% of consumers prefer video over written content when learning about a product or service. So, video content can lead to more time on your website and more page engagement. Both of those metrics are signs to Google that you’re providing valuable content.
When placed strategically on your website, video content helps to increase conversions by nurturing a buyer along their journey. Encouraging more conversions increases the organic value of those pages.
For example, Forge Apollo produced a new series of videos for Breathless Resorts & Spas to use across their website. They give viewers a sense of what an experience at their resorts could be like to help nurture them towards booking.
In other cases, we also utilize video banners to showcase products or experiences. On SoftLite Window’s homepage, an animated video shows the various components of their windows. A video banner on tiki bar The Point’s website showcases the food, drink, and atmosphere you’ll experience when visiting. All Craft Exterior’s website video banner showcases the expertise of their installers.
Consider at what point in their journey buyers are when they visit a page to strategize how video content may help them. For example, increase conversions on your landing page by up to 80% by including a video.
Optimize Videos for SEO When Posting
How you post video content on your website, or a video directory like YouTube, affects its SEO. For example, a page with a video and a transcription boosts SEO because crawlers can read the transcription text easily.
Besides including transcriptions, the technical way you embed or host videos on your website has an impact on SEO. More videos than ever are appearing in Google search results.
Download our free guide on best practices for YouTube SEO.
Google recently released a video indexing report on Google Search Console to provide more insight into how it indexes your website’s videos. You can use the report to improve your video’s performance on Google. If nothing else, this is a major sign that video will play an even larger role in SEO down the line.
Here are some other best practices to consider when optimizing videos for SEO:
- Create a dedicated page on your website for each video
- On-page elements near the video (headings, captions, etc.) should be relevant to the video content
- Include a high-quality thumbnail URL accessible to Google
- Provided structured data with VideoObject markup from schema.org
- Submit a video sitemap to Google Search Console
Video SEO Services in Philadelphia, PA
When you create high-quality video content with SEO goals in mind, you can achieve impressive results. Whether climbing SERP rankings, earning backlinks, or increasing conversions, video marketing is a secret weapon for your SEO strategy. Contact the video and SEO experts at Forge Apollo today to boost your SEO strategy with quality video content.
