If you’ve been surfing the waves of internet recently, you have most definitely landed on video content somewhere. The power of film is undoubtedly growing, but is having videos really that good for your website ranking?
Video as a Marketing Tool
People tend to remember 90% of all information through their eyes, so no wonder we prefer video over text. In fact, one minute of online video equates to 1.8 million words of text, according to a Forrester research.
Unsurprisingly, marketers have seized the opportunity to give the audience what they constantly crave for. The number of companies using video format to reach the customers is on the rise.
However, there remain some barriers between video usage and small business advertising. The main reason for avoiding this type of promotion is often a lack of budget or staff who will make the script and do the filming.
Luckily, it can be done for much less than you’d expect. Numerous small and mid-sized businesses create video content only with the help of their smartphones. Most of the times, the script is not even needed. All you need is a little time, willpower and a few people.
How Having Videos Can Boost Your Website Ranking
The main goal of adding videos to your website, apart from notifying customers with news about your brand is, without a doubt, boosting your website ranking. Here’s how to do it:
- Give Useful Information to the Viewers
Offering valuable information or solving a problem makes the people want to share new knowledge. Social media sharing, in particular. It is is a free form of advertising you get when people like the awesome video you made. It also leads to the appreciation of your brand and again, spreading the word amongst other potential customers.
- Include a Video Transcript
While most viewers will gladly watch the given content, some may miss the important parts, so it is best to give them the written word option below the video. Plus, the transcript improves the relevance of video in the search results.
- Make the Videos Relevant for Search Engines
Speaking of search results, it is crucial to optimise videos and write relevant Metadata. That means going after long tail keywords you wouldn’t usually use in other forms of content on your website. Moreover, providing enough details in the title, the description and the tags makes the videos easily readable by search engines. The picture below shows optimising videos on YouTube.
Source: Business2Community
- Don’t Let It Slow Your Site
Even though a lot can be said with a 10-minute video, an average visitor will leave your site after 3 seconds of waiting for the page to load. You wouldn’t want to experience a 50% higher bounce rate, so make sure to either shorten the video, turn it into another format, or use a video thumbnail that plays the video only when the play button is hit.
- Host Videos on YouTube
The last and maybe the best advice for boosting your website ranking with videos is to host them on YouTube. Why? Let’s get into that.
Youtube Video and SEO
Ideally, you will host your own videos on your own site without the help of video-sharing websites. Sadly, it comes with a high price. Not only you have to have perfect content and Metadata, but risk having a slow site, which greatly affects SEO.
On the other side, uploading the video to YouTube means faster loading time and a more secure video source. It also means the viewers may find you not only through your website but through the host website and generate traffic back to your site.
To support the facts about the benefit YouTube videos have on SEO, Backlinko recently analysed more than a million YouTube videos. They found out that the comments are an influential ranking factor and that the number of shares influences the website’s position in the SERPs.
What’s more, the average length of a first page YouTube video is 14 minutes, 50 seconds. Therefore, if you want to upload that long video on YouTube and have it on your website, go ahead and do it!
To Conclude
Your business can greatly benefit from having videos on the website. They inform the viewer, make him interested in your product and eventually, they bring you higher conversion rates when the videos rank higher in search engines.
