How Video Content Can Improve Your SEO Ranking

So, just how can video content improve your SEO rank in 2022 ? In January 1996, Microsoft published an essay describing the importance of content in the future. It was titled as ‘Content is King’. However, they were not clear about the kind of the content that would rule the internet in the future: video

Undoubtedly, animated videos enjoy an unrivalled dominance. But why are videos are so important?

Why people love to watch the videos

Let’s start our journey with a little experiment.

If you search for Vice, Red Bull or Monster Energy in Bing, you’ll find the video results at the top of the page. The reason is these brands concentrate on marketing through videos than any other form of content. So their videos are more popular and people love to watch them.

On the other hand, if you look for Bose, Gatorade or Lockheed in Bing, there are fewer chances to find a first page video result. However, this result wouldn’t harm these top brands or show a rank of their liking but it clearly shows how a company develops its content marketing strategy. They are actually not following the latest trends according to the online users’ choice.

Monster Energy and Red Bull have gained enormous popularity because they have exploited the right marketing tool of videos. They have published numerous videos online not confined to only sports but also other sectors.

So what would you get from it?

You may not be associated with content or Media Company but you should never neglect the benefits of using videos to promote your services and products. According to the statistics, more than 50% of mobile users like to watch videos and senior executives and managers also prefer video over text.

Furthermore, to explain the ‘why’ of video popularity, we will have to thoroughly analyze ‘how videos generate great SERP rankings’’.

Reasons behind the popularity of video :

People get emotionally connected to videos

People can easily understand the message in videos; they can rapidly digest the video content. Besides, people pay attention to videos for longer period of times. In fact, a video is more expressive and illustrative than other content mediums like image or text.

A video can express feelings, behaviors, and it clearly coveys the main theme. In addition to that, videos also bring 41% higher CTR and higher conversion rate and ROI than simple text or image.

How videos can be helpful for SEO

Videos easily score high with content marketing because videos can be easily shared, by embedding the links and other mediums. Companies, even Facebook, focus on creating enticing and entertaining videos. In this way, people spend more time on your web page, increasing the ‘dwell time’. In 2011, Dwell Time was thoroughly discussed in a Bing blog.

More dwell time would result in the higher Google page ranking of your web pages. A well-optimized video on a web page increases its chances of ranking first on Google search engine by a factor of 53. But for this, your video must contain the enticing qualities to attract a worldwide audience.

The unavoidable reach access to Videos

YouTube, the largest video content online forum, alone enjoys more than one billion visitors each year. It is offering video content in 76 regional languages which clearly describes its enormous reach around the globe. According to the statistics, 62% viewers understand the video content and 53% viewers expect more videos from online forums. The stats show a massive four times increase in internet video traffic in the recent past. Besides, by 2021, about 81% of internet traffic would be attracted only by videos.

After analyzing all the statistics, it is quite natural that search engines prefer videos than any other type of content. With the advancement in the technology, it’s becoming easy for people to watch videos online using different devices like Smart phone, Tablets etc.

Bing and Yahoo started video advertising in 2015. It proved beneficial for different businesses. However, you need not to spend a single penny to advertise your video. If your video is good and interesting, it will surely rank top in search engines.

How SERPs feature videos?

Nowadays, Google is using different tools to highlight video-related features. In this respect, you can observe ‘suggested clips’ by Google showing relevant snippets of videos in SERPs. ‘How-to videos’ are highly utilized to feature as ‘suggested clips’. Whatever your business industry is from the auto industry to fashion design you can rank top by creating ‘how-to videos’.

What video should I make?

There are numerous choices. You can create ‘how to organize an event’ or ‘how to prepare for a corporate meeting’. You just need a camera and you can record the activities prior an event or a meeting. It is so simple!

Google algorithm for images works perfectly. As far as videos are concerned, now Google is using beta to identify the relevant video content and rank it through the algorithm. In the near future, your videos will cast a tremendous spell on the search engine results and it’d be the right time to publish video content regularly.

If you are using Android phone, you might have noticed the Google photo app. This app recognizes the faces, places and other things to arrange them in the same group. Or you might have come across CAPTCHAs showing you different things like cars, store fronts, traffic lights to verify your identity. In the same way, now Google tools are trying to identify the video content. Of course, a video contains thousands of images. Google’s Video Intelligence API identifies these images and the keywords to determine the video page rank. So you must use the relevant keywords and content in your videos.

All in all, there are various aspects determining the rank of a video. You need to take care of little things to make a perfect video. However, the basics are the same when you talk about the creation of a video.

Follow these tips on video SEO and get your videos higher rank in SERPs

Keep your video short and sweet

Try to make shorter videos, ideally 1 to 2 minutes long. A video of more than 5 minutes starts losing its charm, not in all cases but in most cases, so avoid that.

Get your video transcribed

Search engines are wise enough to identify the content of your video; however, it is good to get your videos transcribed. In this way, your videos can be found easily by search engines.

Share your videos to social media and other forums

Share your videos to almost all the online forums. Your video must be everywhere on the internet. You should share it on Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube, your web site, and all other relevant online forum. Cross-share only when you don’t have access to an online platform. Keep in mind the fact that native videos get more recognition, higher SEO rank and sharing than cross-shared or linked videos. Only on Facebook, native videos get ten times more sharing than the YouTube linked videos.

Properly optimize your videos

Meta description, keywords, tags, titles, sub-titles and transcription are really important to make your videos more visible in search engines. Use the relevant keywords, Meta tags etc to properly optimize your videos.

Use proper XML sitemap

You can use webmaster tool to upload your video sitemap on Google. It will help to improve your site ranking.

Use HD thumbnails for your videos

Use unique and high-quality images for videos to catch the attention of the viewers. You can use click-bait images but don’t use them regularly because they can ruin your image. Add interesting text to highlight video features to attract more traffic.

Final thought On Video SEO

Features like unavoidable reach, enormous acceptance, easy to understand, availability in various regional languages etc give the videos paramount importance. You must keep the videos at top when you’re formulating your marketing strategy. They will not only bring maximum CTR but also the highest conversion rate. You might have all the weapons in your arsenal but a video is such a secret weapon that can turn the tables in your favor.

Article by Nicole Delgado 2022 | CMO | Explainer Video Production Company | Animated Video Explainers

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