Video Marketing: Will it Improve SEO Rankings?
How Do Videos Improve Ranks?
There are a few major reasons why videos improve SEO rankings. One big reason is that they create a lot of backlinks to a website. Also, they stir up more interest online because a lot of Internet users would rather get information visually and orally rather than have to do the reading. Another thing to consider is that the videos themselves will rank in SERPs, and this means they can create another channel for your website.
Building Up Your Site’s Backlink Profile
Create a video that people like and they’ll create links to it. This will allow you to passively acquire more links to both your site and your video page over time.
If you want to take advantage of the fact that videos create backlinks, you need to create the type of video that people will be looking for to make a point or explain something. By making your video uniquely helpful or desirable, you’ll be able to attract many people to that video and you’ll create a big demand for it.
Internet users know that videos convey a lot of information in a clear and readily comprehensible way, and they do this quickly. Those who are interested in your industry, product, or services are probably always on the lookout for certain information. Create a quality video that helps out your audience and begin reaping the benefits when it comes to backlinking.
Remember the following when you are using video to build links:
- Always embed your video into your website page rather than posting a link to Youtube.
- Be highly specific with your videos so that you can create numerous videos and so that your videos clearly explain a particular topic in detail.
- Don’t shirk on quality. A poorly made video or a video that’s not really uniquely useful isn’t going to lead to any backlinks.
Appealing to Online Visitors with Convenience
A lot of Internet users are a lot more likely to click on a video link in a SERP than a text link. Some topics have to be addressed visually. A video link can give you a great opportunity to not only present information in a more accessible way for viewers, but it can also give you a chance to showcase your product or service in action scenes.
If you’re looking to attract viewers to video links thanks to their convenience in presenting information, consider the following three video marketing tips:
- Make sure your video is placed “Above the Fold” on the page or above the bottom when the visitor has not yet scrolled down.
- Be careful to create titles that are accurate descriptions of what’s contained in the video.
We know that more and more people are watching videos on mobile devices. Often times viewers are in quiet areas where they can’t turn on sound. To offer convenience and increased engagement, include subtitles to the video. This way viewers can understand the message, without having to turn on the sound. If the video is too long, consider a subtitle service to do the closed captioning for you.
Ranking Video Pages Themselves
It’s important to understand that video marketing isn’t just about improving the rank of your website itself. The page on which your video is placed will also be able to rank both in search engine results and in search results on sites like YouTube.
Therefore, you can optimize the video pages and with them create another channel through which potential customers can access your website.
The following tips will help you to rank the video pages that are part of your video marketing efforts:
- Don’t make your video go on too long
- Include rich-video snippets when you offer a video
- Include a transcription of the video script to clearly explain the subject to Google and other search engines
Seven Important Tips to Help Ramp Up Your Video Marketing Efforts
Now that you see just how important video marketing is and how it can help your SEO campaign in a variety of ways, you need to get started creating videos that will give you the best possible results.
The following are seven great tips to keep in mind as you go about creating videos and embedding them on your website pages:
- Take the time to focus on the overall integration of videos onto your site pages – You’re going to want textual explanations and introductions of each of your videos. Put some thought into matching the voice of your website text with the voice that’s presented in your video. Make sure your videos “fit in” and that their placement on your website pages is logical and organized.
- Use YouTube to host your videos – It’s important to take note of the fact that YouTube is now owned by Google. If you’re looking to rank in Google, you’ll no doubt do well to use Google’s own video marketing behemoth. Posting your video on YouTube will give your video some extra exposure and another search engine (the search engine of YouTube itself) to come upon.
- Include a link to your website on your YouTube page – You should be able to have up to two backlinks on your YouTube video page. You can also create your own YouTube channel and also put your webpage on your YouTube channel page.
- Post your videos on social media – Any time you post a video, you probably want to let people know about it on your social media pages. This will result in more likes and views for your video, and these types of metrics are probably important factors in the SEO rankings of videos.
- Devise videos that solve problems for your viewers – Every single video you post should ideally address some sort of problem that your target customer would be likely to have. Video marketing isn’t just about putting up self-promotional videos. It’s about drawing in an audience by presenting them with the information they need, and in this way starting a relationship and a communication channel with that audience.
- Try to add some interactive features – If possible, you should try to allow video viewers to interact with you. Possible interactive features for online videos include links embedded into videos and in-video quizzes or surveys. It’s probably much easier than you think to add these special features to videos, and they raise viewer engagement and increase the chances that the viewer will keep watching until the end of the video.
- Make sure videos don’t take too much time to load – The attention span of a typical Internet surfer is unfortunately not very long. If your video takes more than only three seconds to load, the viewer is probably going to lose interest. You can minimize load times by keeping your video short and improving load times on your website.