Video marketing for SEO – The Secrets
Once upon time, SEO was easy. You used the phrase you wanted to rank for over and over again, paid a few hundred dodgy websites to link to you using your choice of anchor text and your job was done. Thankfully for internet users, Google got wise to this years ago. The Panda and Penguin algorithm updates made it much more difficult for sites using these techniques to rank near the top of Google’s results and caused big changes to the way that SEO works. Around the same time, using video marketing for SEO became much more important.
Thankfully, at the same time, Google became much more open about the ranking signals that help websites to appear high up in their search results. One of the factors they constantly reiterate the importance of is the use of video marketing for SEO. This boosts your click through rate and means that users will spend longer on your site. It also reduces bounce rates and increases click through rates from Google to your website.
Simply saying that Google loves video is far too simplistic. To be more accurate, Google loves video that makes people love your website. A 15 minute long, shaky video shot on a mobile phone isn’t going to cut it. Here are our three tips for creating a marketing video that will improve your Google ranking.
Video marketing for SEO is all about your message
Sometimes, people come to us asking us to make a marketing video, but aren’t sure what the marketing video is actually going to do. If you don’t know, then you won’t make the impact you’re wanting to. Our report on Questions to Ask Before Making a Video is a great place to start. It will help you to clarify exactly what you’re trying to achieve before you plunge in and start production.
This is absolutely essential for your SEO because, if your video isn’t interesting to your website visitors then they’ll bounce just like they always have, Google will notice and your ranking won’t improve.
The video needs to be on the right page
Our first piece of advice here is simple. Don’t put the video on a video page with nothing else on it. The video should fit naturally into your website, not sit awkwardly on the side. It should be on a page that already attracts a good level of traffic (or that ought to). It also needs to have a good call to action and make it obvious what the viewer should do next. We often work with video hosting systems that allow you to add data capture forms directly into the video, meaning that it’s easy for users to give you their email address to find out more information. Why does that matter? Because it helps you build your marketing list.
The video should be above the fold
As we said earlier, simply putting a video on a page isn’t good for your SEO. It’s the way that people interact with the video that’s good for your Google ranking. Therefore, burying it at the bottom of a subpage full of tumbleweed isn’t going to help. The video should be front and centre. It needs to immediately attract the attention of anyone who lands on the page and it should be obvious why a user would want to watch it. For this reason, it’s critical that the video uses an effective thumbnail image that explains the benefits of taking 30 or 60 seconds to watch it. Attention spans are short these days and you’re asking for quite a lot of time – you need to emphasise what’s in it for your visitor to watch our video.
There’s a lot to take in when it comes to video marketing for SEO. If our hints and tips have you raring to make a video of your own, why not contact one of our video marketing experts? We’d be delighted to talk you through your options and help you to plan and produce a highly effective piece of video marketing that could work wonders for your Google ranking.
