Why Your Brand Needs an SEO-Rich Video Strategy
In recent years, video has been described as “king” in digital marketing, and as a reaction, brands have begun producing video content in troves. Social media networks may prioritize videos in their algorithms, but there’s more to it. Without thoughtful consideration given to the content of videos and their technical specifications, they often fall flat.
Social media isn’t the only marketing channel that can benefit from video content. Search engines put a high value on videos embedded on brand websites – but only when those videos add to a website’s overall expertise and authority.
How can you ensure your videos don’t get lost in the sea of other video marketing on social media and search networks? And can video be used on your website to increase your search engine ranking?
What is Video SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process of taking steps to improve a website’s visibility in search results on Google or other search engines.
Video SEO refers to these two marketing strategies:
- Optimizing traffic for video content from search engines, YouTube, and social media channels.
- Using video marketing to increase a website’s visibility in search results.
Why is Video SEO Important for Businesses?
When you’ve spent precious time and money creating video content, you want to be sure that content actually reaches the audience it’s intended for. Without using SEO strategies for videos, they can go unseen and take away from the value of a business’s website.
How Does Video SEO Work?
One goal of all SEO and content marketing efforts is to have web pages indexed by Google. When a page is indexed, it means that Google has analyzed it and added it to its database, so it will show up in search results.
Images and videos are also indexed by Google. When search engines index videos, they are indexing the page that the video lives on as a “video page.” It will then appear in video search results and could land the first position as a video-rich snippet.
Alternative Search Engines
Today’s consumers are crafty with how they use digital media. Most generations, and especially the 50 and under age groups, turn to social media applications as an alternative to typing queries in a search engine.
For example, someone may search “best dog leashes” on Google and be met with a vast list of sponsored ads and product ads from brands. Or, they could tap the same query into YouTube or TikTok and watch a video where leashes are demonstrated on dogs.
Seeing a product being used by someone other than the brand peddling it, such as trusted influencers, is a powerful touchpoint that can lead many to make a purchase decision. This trend of using alternatives to Google to seek information is why video SEO is so important for brands to understand.
But not many brands are capitalizing on this trend! The keyword density for YouTube and Google can vary wildly.
Searching ‘best dog leashes’ on Google returned 16.9 million results! That’s an impossible amount of information for a consumer to look through, resulting in product fatigue and no purchases.
YouTube doesn’t explicitly say how many results for the query are returned. However, we can assume there are way fewer than 16.9 million videos about dog leashes on the platform. The results do include some ads from leash companies, but they also include comparison videos, leash guide videos, and a selection of TikTok-like YouTube Shorts with actionable titles.
Do you see the opportunity here? Using SEO-rich, high-quality video tactics could land your brand on the first page of YouTube results for keyword queries that are oversaturated on Google.
How Do You Make SEO-rich Video Content?
For video content to be SEO-rich, it must be optimized for search so your target audience (and Google) can actually find it. This means being strategic with title tag information and keywords in the video description. Choose a video length and topic that resonates with your audience, and engage with users in the comments.
Here are other tips to improve video ranking:
- Use videos on your company’s website
- Integrate videos seamlessly into other content
- Choose a high-quality thumbnail
- Use video transcripts
- Get the specs right
The right creative content and specs for your brand will vary based on your marketing goals, industry, and target audience.
Does Video Help a Website’s SEO Ranking?
Google deems websites valuable and rankable when they demonstrate expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. This is why it’s important to create video content that adds value to your customers, rather than simply having a play button.
When Google identifies valuable video content on a webpage, it will index that page as a video page and increase the likelihood that the video is included in the featured snippet, if you earn one.
Video content should be educational, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be boring. Have fun with the video you create! Make sure it accurately represents your brand, and integrate it onto the most relevant pages of your website.
Video SEO Use Case: Multi-Location Businesses
Video SEO is just one piece of a comprehensive strategy that can get eyes on the web pages for your brand’s multiple locations.
We worked with a client with 80 locations across the country and increased their organic search impressions by 65%. Our SEO experts didn’t stop there. All 80 locations earned the #1 search engine results position after implementing an extensive SEO strategy, individualized for this client.
If this sounds like something that could benefit your business, let us know!
FAQs
How long does it take videos to be indexed by Google?
Google indexes videos at a slightly slower rate than it indexes web pages. Your videos may start appearing in search results after a few days of being on your website. This timeline can be faster or slower depending on the size and Google’s perceived authority of your website.
Do videos increase your website’s E-A-T rating?
Videos can increase your website’s EAT rating when they educate, give your brand authority on a subject, and are trustworthy. All of these aspects would provide value to your website and give a favorable impression to Google, increasing the likelihood of appearing in search results.
Why is video SEO important?
Video SEO is important because it gets the video content you create in front of the people who need to see it and can increase your website’s value. Without video SEO, your videos may go unseen or not add anything to your website’s E-A-T ranking.
What are the benefits of video marketing?
Using video content in your marketing campaigns will allow you to appear in video searches. This will give you content pieces that can be repurposed across multiple social media platforms and channels.
