Video Can Boost Your SEO
There has been much talk about how great content is critical for SEO. Your website, blogs and social media posts need to capture the readers’ interest, generate leads and get your brand name out there. Content in the form of text is great, as long as it meets these criteria, but including video in your content mix can do wonders to improve your SEO.
The fact of the matter is, most people prefer to watch videos over just reading through plain text. This is especially true of the younger generations, such as Millenials. Hubspot conducted a survey where it was determined that 45% of survey respondents watched an hour or more of video content per week, mostly on Facebook and YouTube. But Snapchat is surpassing Facebook, with viewers totaling about 10 billion per day! You can’t ignore those numbers. You also can’t discount the fact that YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine!
5 Ways to Use Videos in Your SEO Strategy
Users differ in their preferences on consuming content. Some choose to watch a movie for two hours, while others opt to spend more time reading the book. In your attempt to attract all types of users, you’ll need to include a mixture of different types of media in your content. Video can definitely be an advantage, especially for those readers who don’t want to spend a lot of time reading the text. They can get the same info by watching a quick video.
So using video can be a good way to get users to your website and view your content. But how much does it really impact SEO? Let’s look at a few ways it helps.
1. Link Building
Most people prefer viewing videos over reading text, so they are more attracted to that medium. Add to that the fact that videos are easily shareable. Videos can actually triple the average number of links as text. Let’s face it; it’s more pertinent to share a link to a video than to a particular block of text.
2. Search Engine Ranking Pages (SERP).
Using appropriate keywords is still important in achieving high rankings in the search results; however, quality content is fast becoming a significant factor. Content needs to be relatable, informative and relevant. This is also true for video content. To maximize SEO from your videos, here are some suggestions:
- Videos should not be more than 3 minutes long. Any more than that tends to lose viewers’ interest.
- Create video-rich snippets. This is a tiny video included in your search result listing. It helps you stand out from the competition.
- Transcribe the video script to text. This can help spiders crawl your content for relevance. Also including captions can increase traffic to your site.
3. Click-Through Rates (CTR).
CTR is the ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement. You can get better CTR from videos because they stand out and viewers gravitate toward them, so embedding some on your website will enhance the CTR.
Also, adding a thumbnail video in your listing can help CTR. The following SERP is from a search for How to Paint a Room. First of all, the listing with the video shows up on top of the organic results; secondly, viewers will likely prefer watching the video over reading instructions.
4. Bounce Rate
This metric determines the number of people who land on your site, then do nothing on that page. This means no clicking on links, menu items or anything to learn more about you and your site. The bounce rate is a measurement of how your site satisfies the requirements of the query. If the bounce rate is high, it either means your site isn’t relevant to what they wanted, or it isn’t interesting enough to keep them engaged. Videos can help retain and attract more interaction from your customers.
5. Dwell Time
This is the converse of bounce rate; it’s the actual time visitors stay on a site before clicking back to the SERPs. It goes without saying that the higher the dwell time, the better it is for your business. If the dwell time is longer than 2 minutes, it’s a sign that the search result is relevant.
Again, because videos are more engaging, including them on your site can increase the dwell time. Users become more absorbed in watching videos, as opposed to skimming through text or even photos.
The bottom line is that using videos as part of your SEO strategy can be a great way to improve its overall effectiveness. You can’t ignore the statistics that they improve user engagement, which in turn leads to more traffic and links, better retention, and higher SERP.
Contact St. Louis SEO for Growth to Improve Your SEO Strategy
St. Louis SEO for Growth can help you with an SEO strategy that is effective your business. You can get a free SEO report to serve as a basis for enhancing your ability to get found online. Contact us today to learn more!