High-Quality Video Content Can Help Your SEO

Video content is expected to account for more than four-fifths of all internet traffic by 2022, according to a report by the information technology (IT) company Cisco. As a business owner, there are multiple ways to capitalize on the rise of online video, such as publishing relevant videos on YouTube or emailing videos to prospects. Alternatively, you can use videos to strengthen your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. When implemented correctly, video content can drive your website to the first page of Google’s and Bing’s search results and overtake your competitors.

Videos Attract Organic Backlinks

Most webmasters know that backlinks, especially when obtained from authoritative and relevant websites, are essential to an effective SEO strategy but few know how to obtain them without raising red flags by Google’s and Bing’s ranking algorithms. Now that search engines are adept at identifying link schemes — link spam, paid links, link farms, hidden contextual links, etc. — you must attract backlinks to your website naturally using high-quality content. While high-quality text content may attract some backlinks, it pales in comparison to video content.

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If another webmaster watches your video and finds it useful, he or she may link to it from their website. Video is a more engaging form of content than text, so it usually attracts more backlinks. And if you host your videos on YouTube, you can include a backlink to your website in the videos’ description field. If another webmaster embeds your YouTube-hosted video on his or her website, it will preserve the backlink in the description to expand your website’s backlink portfolio.

Videos Encourage Social Media Sharing

Visitors are more likely to share your website on social media if it contains video content. Facebook alone generates an estimated 8 billion video views per day, so it’s safe to say that social media users enjoy watching videos. A study conducted by Socialbakers also found that videos reach more users on Facebook than images, text posts, links and photos. By including videos on your website, you’ll encourage visitors to share it on Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks. And when search engine notice that hundreds or thousands of social media users have shared your website, they may increase your site’s search rankings.

Videos Are Indexed by Search Engines

Including video content on your website can increase your site’s presence in the search results. Search engines like Google and Bing have a dedicated search function that allows users to search for videos on the internet. Found at video.google.com and bing.com/videos, respectively, they only display listings of web pages with videos that are relevant to the user’s search query. If you don’t publish videos on your website, it won’t rank here. This is just one more way that high-quality content can strengthen your SEO strategy.

Videos Increase Visitors’ Time on Page

The amount of time visitors spend on your website’s pages can affect the search rankings of those pages. Both Google and Bing use engagement metrics, including average time on page, in their ranking algorithm, though Google places more weight on this ranking signal than its Microsoft-owned counterpart. To rank high on Google, you must publish engaging content that connects with visitors and encourages them to stay, which you can achieve using video content.

According to Forbes, the average internet users stays 88 percent longer on websites with videos than on websites without videos. If your website currently has an average time on page — an engagement metric available through Google Analytics — of three minutes, adding a high-quality video may boost it to over five minutes. Unlike with text, visitors can’t scroll video content while searching for headers and main points. Rather, they must sit back and watch the video to see what it’s about.

Videos Are Preferred By Shoppers

Most online shoppers prefer video content over text content. A survey conducted by Wyzowl found that seven in 10 consumers prefer watching videos about a product rather than reading text about it. If you sell products on your website, using videos can increase visitor satisfaction, which may improve other engagement metrics as well as your site’s search rankings.

It’s easier for shoppers to watch a product video than read a text description about the product. Furthermore, videos offer an unparalleled level of transparency into products by showing, instead of telling, how they work. And even if your website doesn’t sell products, using video to convey your messages may result in increased visitor satisfaction simply because people prefer watching videos rather than reading.

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Videos Are Measurable

You’ll have access to key performance metrics (KPIs) when using video content on your website. If you host your videos on YouTube and then embed them on your site, you can measure KPIs like watch time, average view duration, number of unique viewers, number of views per viewer, audience retention and more from your YouTube account. All of this data can help you create even better video content that your website’s visitors want to watch. If you discover that viewers are spending more time watching videos about a specific topic, for example, you can create more videos on that topic.

Videos Are Easy to Create

Creating content for a website is typically time consuming and laborious, but video content is surprisingly easy to create. Many laptop computers and desktop monitors have a built-in webcam that you can use to record yourself talking about a topic. If your computer or monitor doesn’t have a webcam, you can use your smartphone’s camera instead. With a mobile camera, you can record other scenes and landscapes as well. And there are online video editors — Animoto, Magisto and WeVideo — that provide simplified editing and customization of your videos.

If creating your own videos sounds like too much work, you can always outsource this job to a professional video production company. You tell them what type of video you want, and they’ll handle the legwork so that you can focus your time elsewhere.

The rising consumption of online video signals new opportunities for webmasters looking to increase their website’s search rankings. If you’re going to publish video content on your website, though, you should create high-quality, engaging videos that are relevant to your site’s visitors. By providing visitors with the right videos, search engines will rank your website more favorably in the search results.