How Video Content Improves Your SEO Ranking

After years of being “the next big thing” in the content marketing landscape, video content has become a new norm. This highly-engaging content is a staple tool in every savvy marketer’s digital strategy. Today, more than 87 percent of marketers have been putting video at the forefront of their overall marketing strategy.

What makes video content more convincing is that it’s not only a powerful tool to break down complex topics, but it also gives you a massive boost in rankings and drives more people to your website.

Now, the big question: How exactly can video content enhance your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts?

In this post, we’ll walk you through how video content can help you rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs). But before we get to the nitty-gritty, you must understand why videos are always in such high demand.

Video is a Smart Content Marketing Strategy

After YouTube was established in 2005, the major stepping stone for video marketing had been created and the online video revolution had just begun. 

Now, the platform is the world’s second-largest search engine with more than 1 billion videos watched per day. This single fact is enough to prove how much internet users love videos.

The reason is quite simple: In this digital world where internet users’ attention spans are in decline, being able to get quick information and entertainment at the same time is so meaningful. Video content provides a message that resonates with internet users and delivers it with a voice and personality that captivates them through a one-on-one connection.

According to the latest video marketing statistics, more than 55 percent of internet users watch videos on a daily basis. And at least 72 percent of potential customers use video to learn more about the product or service they’re interested in buying.

Looking at all those massive numbers that keep climbing each year, Google couldn’t stand idly by. The giant search engine seems to favor and value video content more than it ever did before. That’s where video content can be an extremely compelling type of content and make a meaningful impact on your overall SEO strategy.

4 Ways Video Can Boost Your SEO Efforts

A high SEO ranking is not all about building an impressive number of links. It’s also about creating high-quality content that will attract high-value links naturally over time. This is where video content comes in handy. This high-performing content can accrue over time, making it an excellent link building exercise. Below are four ways of how video content can improve your SEO efforts:

1. Google Has a Preference For Videos

The first and probably the most apparent way video can help with your search rankings is that your videos can rank directly in Google’s search results. In other words, video content is far more likely to be blended into the search results than any other type of content. This is because Google has awarded growing importance to the unique content in its search results. In this case, multimedia content like video is an example of the unique content Google rates as valuable and relevant. In fact, 62 percent of general searches on Google will result in a video.

A Google search on just about any subject will result in videos appearing on the first page. What’s more, most of the videos appear near the top of the search results. Alongside this, you’ve probably noticed that Google has a tab for videos at the top of its search results. It allows you to show results only for videos.

So, if you’re integrating video content into your content strategy, you’ll also have a chance to get better, higher ranking search results. Websites with video content are 53 times more likely to appear on the top pages of Google’s search results compared to the ones without it.

2.Video Increases Visitors’ Time Spent on Your Website

Video isn’t only effective to grab your visitors’ attention, but most times a video is enticing enough to keep your visitor watching until the end. That’s how video is proven to increase the time people spend on your website that will naturally benefit your SEO efforts on this front.

According to Spiel’s SEO Survey, a whopping 93.3 percent of the SEO professionals had noticed an increase in their time-spend after they posted video content on their website. In addition, Wistia also analyzed their top 100 highest-trafficked pages and found that their visitors spend around 2.6x longer on pages that include video content:

But, what does time spent have to do with SEO rankings?

The more time visitors spend on your landing page and the longer they spend on your website as a whole, the better your engagement rate is. With excellent engagement rates, your dwell time will increase. 

This tells Google that you provide a lot of value from your content. And if lots of internet users spend a long time on your page, Google will give it a rankings boost.

As internet users tend to spend 88 percent more time browsing on sites that have videos, incorporating one to your website can be a goldmine for your SEO efforts.

3. Social Media Shares Can Increase Your Click-Through Rates (CTR)

Video content is incredibly shareable. So, it should come as no surprise if it’s considered to be dominating social media engagement in digital marketing. You can share your video content to your social networks for high organic click-through rates, which is an increasingly crucial factor in your SEO rankings.

One of the many reasons videos are more appealing than other types of content is it can trigger your viewer’s emotional response that engages and motivates them to act. The emotional response will also result in an improved CTR.

It’s no wonder that video ads have an average click-through rate of 1.84 percent, the highest among all digital ad formats.

Imagine when you’re also spreading the ads on popular social media like YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. You’ll definitely boost clicks and drive more people to your sites.

Not only does video content result in a lot more direct traffic to your sites, but a high organic CTR also makes your website a more trustworthy and authoritative source of information on specific topics you covered.

4. Video Earns Inbound Links for Qualified Referral Traffic

As a savvy marketer, you know that the more valuable backlinks or inbound links your website has, the higher it will rank in search engines. Google and other search engine crawlers find you through links and use inbound links as one of its leading indicators for gauging the quality of your content.

In essence, video content helps to build your inbound link profile and give your website more authority, trustworthiness and credibility. Content that includes video attracts at least three times more inbound links than content without it. 

Compelling video content allows you to provide your visitors with a resource to acquire more information, giving them a reason to link to your video. That’s how you earn inbound links. Those quality inbound links will increase your SEO as well as referral traffic to your site, which is highly likely to further result in higher conversions and even a massive increase in sales.

How to Create High-Performing Video to Improve Your SEO Efforts

Not all video content can effectively improve your SEO performance and give you a better ranking position on SERPs — only the well-optimized ones. But creating those well-optimized videos that can be quite tricky. Below are some quick tips for you to develop SEO-booster videos:

• Keyword-Based Title. Despite its function to give your viewers a slice of information, your video title can also act as metadata to search engines about what the video is all about. Therefore, it’s basically just like the search page itself. Including a specific keyword in the first 50+ characters makes it easier for you to appear in the video SERPs.
• Mobile-Friendly. According to Verizon Media, 69 percent of consumers watch videos with sound off. And on Facebook, more than 85 percent of users watch videos on their feeds without audio. That’s because most of them watch videos on their mobile devices. So, it’s crucial to make sure that you create mobile-friendly videos to reach mobile users. One of the most effective ways to ensure your message is delivered is to include captions.
• Clear Call-to-Actions. Make sure your call-to-actions (CTAs) are noticeable so your viewers can easily take the next step after they finish watching your videos. A clear, visible CTAs will lead to more quality traffic and increased conversion.
• Catchy Thumbnails. A video thumbnail should give viewers a sneak peek of the whole video. The more you make it engaging, the more your viewers are convinced to click and watch the video. That way, you’ll get more click-throughs to your video. According to Neil Patel, a catchy thumbnail can increase your engagement by up to 154 percent.

Takeaway

Now that the internet is covered with videos across all platforms in all industries, still ignoring the power of them can possibly leave your audience perceiving your business and brand as dull. Among all the benefits you get from incorporating video content to your content strategy, one of the best ones is boosting your SEO efforts to get a higher rank on SERPs. 

Placing video content on your website and sharing it with your social network makes it easier for you to get found by your target audience. Remember, create your video that provides value and information for viewers so you can get maximum results of it for your SEO campaigns. After all, once you nail your SEO campaigns, the other good things will follow– including an impressive increase conversion rate and sales.