What is video SEO, and how can it benefit my business?
Video SEO is, as the name suggests, the deployment of video assets to accompany your traditional SEO and content methods. Given that users are more inclined to visual content, video continues to grow as a major content consumption method and you will see videos occupy a lot of space in the search results for various queries.
Given that Google owns YouTube, there is a direct tangential link between how active your company is on YouTube and how this could impact your existing SEO efforts with the use of video. YouTube results are commonly displayed in Google, and many websites will get around 15-25% of their traffic from YouTube search, depending on the query.
Video SEO should be viewed as a content enhancing investment and a powerful marketing tool in its own right. For example, if you’re looking to grow your brand presence in the “how to/guide” arena for your industry, then accompanying your written content with well produced and digestible videos can bring you a whole new level of audience alongside the usual SEO channel and the subsequent return can be huge.
How do search engines rank videos, and what factors influence video ranking in SERPs?
Videos are ranked in a similar fashion to how traditional search results are ranked. There are technical elements such as video title and descriptions which help, but ultimately the video needs to be relevant to the keyword in question (keyword research applies to video SEO too), sharable and engaging.
Quality is a big factor too, with a high proportion of video content ranked highly on YouTube (and on Google) being in HD. Investing in a quality studio setup with the right types of microphones and cameras can stand you apart in terms of professionalism, all of which will contribute to your rankings.
What are some best practices for optimising video content, and how can businesses create engaging, shareable video content?
Aside from ensuring your videos are high quality in terms of sound, vision, editorial and are marked up with snappy, call-to-action driven titles and descriptions as well as video Schema, there are still a few considerations for businesses to succeed in video SEO.
Much like your content efforts, put yourself in the shoes of your consumers and think about what problems they need solving. What was your initial purpose for starting your business and what has been your most successful product or service sales to date? What edge do you have that no one else can offer?
Get your SEO team to present their usual keyword research and gather up some long-tail, commercial yet problem-centric keywords related to your product. If you’re an auto repair business, it may be around a single feature of an area of a car that is fixable, such as “How to know what tyre pressure I need?”.
Offering step by step solutions in video format to such commonplace problems tied to your brand can help in your YouTube SEO efforts.
How can businesses use video SEO to improve their website’s traffic and engagement, and what metrics should they track to measure success?
Video assets either embedded on a webpage or promoted via YouTube (or other third-party video platforms) can serve as great accompaniments to your traditional content offerings.
Given that video packs appear frequently in search results, either pulled up from content embeds or YouTube itself, this can offer a great opportunity for your business to capture a large chunk of real estate in the search results. Users will also be more likely drawn to video content over other formats.
Consider the use of supplementary video content on key pages across your site, and use these as key assets when sharing your commercial content. Videos shared on social media, on forums, via email marketing and on your blog posts will open up new arenas of audience engagement and yet another digital channel for you to attribute revenue from.
Important metrics associated with video content include shares, views from search (and YouTube), average percent of video viewed, views from non-subscribers/new users, and ultimately click through rate of your videos.
What are some common mistakes to avoid when optimising video content for search engines, and how can they impact SEO?
A lot of mistakes around video SEO come down to technical markup in terms of the right Schema used, embed codes, URLs, and ensuring that they load properly on pages. Google has provided thorough documentation for the technical side of video SEO for SEO departments to study here.
A common error seen in the wild too is ensuring that the YouTube-hosted videos shared across digital assets are made open to the public. Many businesses will share “Delisted” YouTube videos to customers on a peer to peer basis via email or otherwise. If you’re pursuing video SEO efforts, you’ll need to make these videos publicly available on YouTube, otherwise they won’t appear in search results.
How can businesses use video SEO to improve their brand awareness and reputation, and what strategies are most effective?
Visual content is a great way for your business to stand above the rest, and when it comes to brand awareness and online reputation, it can make you appear much more accessible, human and fun.
Video content will allow you to reach a broader audience, particularly if you’re looking to reach out to new demographics, and are keen to capture younger audiences who reside on platforms like YouTube and TikTok.
One common strategy behind video SEO is to use it as a means to detract from what may be a more corporate, commercial tone in your usual web content and offer up a lighter side of your brand.
Of course every investment needs to relate back to revenue, and this needs to be at the forefront of your video SEO strategy. That said, with the younger audience in mind, video content can be a means to diversify your content tone and drum up new funnels of demographic acquisition.
How can businesses use video SEO to improve their conversion rates and drive sales?
One way of doing this is to create compelling product showcase videos that perhaps feature case studies or testimonials.
Content and imagery can give customers a good overview of what they may be considering buying, but those in the final purchase decision process may be inspired by a video showcasing detailed features or USPs to make the final purchase. Taking fashion brands for example, if a user is willing to spend a reasonable amount of money (say a few hundred dollars) on a new jacket, they may want to preview a video of a model wearing it in their size so they get a 360 view of the product.
Similarly, if you’re running a SaaS business, video content will be vital in properly demoing your product features and what problems they solve in a way standard content may not. This can really help tip customers into buying. Videos that do this well should be easily shareable, embeddable and sit alongside your standard content offering.
How can businesses optimise their video content for local search, and what strategies are most effective for reaching a local audience?
Geotagging your videos and adding location-based tags and titles into the video metadata can help with this. If your business has a local Google My Business listing, your team can also enhance this by loading video content onto your listing, perhaps of your office, of team members or an intro video to your products and services.
Is video SEO expensive?
It’s true that video ranking algorithms may favour videos recording in HD with good sound quality (achieved by investing in a decent sound setup), and if you’re considering making video SEO a long term part of your content investments, this may well be worthwhile.
That being said, product demo videos don’t have to be expensive. A lot can be achieved with a video screen sharing and a simple voice over, using a service such as Loom.
Short form videos that often go viral on TikTok and also YouTube are often made with a simple smartphone, even by major influencers, and these are incredibly cheap and time effective to make.
Depending on the size of your content team and budget in place, you should allocate a percentage of your efforts to video content alongside traditional content methods, as the acquisition potential is huge.
How do I get my videos ranking higher on YouTube and what roles does technical SEO play here?
Aside from creating compelling, engaging and shareable videos that tell a great story in their own right, your SEO team will need to be aware of some ranking factors and technical work required in order to ascend YouTube rankings.
Make sure your videos are targeting the right keywords in relation to your business and the problem the video is solving, and mark these up in the video title and description accordingly. Make sure they’re tagged correctly to help YouTube understand the topical relevance of your content.
A key point in modern day web best practices is also accessibility, so uploading transcripts to your videos will make them more discoverable.
With every piece of content there needs to be a customer retention and engagement consideration that will lead users to subscribe to your channel and eventually convert. Break up your video into sections where users can navigate and jump to parts that matter to them. Encourage user engagement by prompting them to like, comment and subscribe after they’ve watched.
Video SEO Case Study
SEO SaaS company makes major headway with intuitive video content.
Problem: The SEO SaaS industry is a competitive, developed space with many softwares and tools offering solutions at reasonable prices. A relatively new tool with a unique approach to SEO content marketing was struggling to breakthrough and establish itself as a major player.
Solution: Through the use of video content highlighting the tool’s USPs such as user friendly design, unique pricing structure and crucially, what the software did that others didn’t, the brand was able to establish itself as a known entity across SEO and social media. Naturally, the brand had a much smaller content marketing budget than some of its competitors, though it was able to drive conversions through a personalised video content approach that was accessible to businesses looking for an edge in their content marketing efforts.