There was a study by Forrester Research a few years back which reported that videos, if properly submitted to search engines (and more often than not, they are not properly submitted) are 53 times more likely to rank on Google’s first page than non video results. There’s no doubt that this statistic has been overtaken by the proliferation of online content over the last few years, and by the ways that we now market on our websites. Indeed, Google has since changed it’s algorithms a few times and that’s had some substantial effect on how these things work, but taken as as an overall concept, there’s a reason why video is the most powerful type of content you can use in your digital marketing, and why the search engines will always want to deliver high quality video search results. So what’s stopping you using video in your online marketing?

Here’s 5 of the myths about video marketing & online video that we regularly hear:

Myth #1: You must generate search results in the “video” section
The video section is considerably less valuable than the default “web” section of search engines, as it generates a lot less search volume and click-through. It is important to appear in the blended search section. That’s where the big wins are – however, good use of video SEO in your digital marketing can ensure that’s exactly where you will appear, hence boosting traffic to your chosen online asset.

Myth #2: Video publishing will provide strong SEO automatically

If you publish on YouTube and embed the code on your other online web assets, the viewers may well be directed to YouTube, not to the sites where the code has been embedded. You can follow the rules on how to optimise your YouTube videos properly and how to cross link them with your blogs etc to ensure your websites and landing pages appear high up on page one of search, however – and sometimes, there may be a value to sending your visitors to your YouTube channel, rather than your website. It’s something to think about when you create your video marketing strategy.

Myth #3: There is no disadvantage to posting a video on YouTube
YouTube belongs to Google, and so any of your content that’s uploaded to YouTube will also belong to Google – including the copyright. Does that matter to your business or is it more important to be visible from every platform in this day and age, especially one as powerful as YouTube? A major benefit to uploading your videos to YouTube is immediate indexing by Google. And that brings you those video SEO and search ranking benefits again. More visibility on the search engines means more eyeballs.

Myth #4 Video marketing is no more effective than other types of marketing

Video resonates with visitors to your website in way that words on the computer screen simply cannot. Here’s some statistics that might just prove that to you (if you needed them):

• 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual. Visual information is processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. (Sources: 3M Corporation and Zabisco)
• 40% of people will respond better to visual information than they will to text. (Source: Zabisco)

Myth #5: Traditional businesses can’t make money using online video