Impact of Video on SEO
We have stressed in previous blogs that web content is key to your SEO. Not only is it important to create fresh, new content, but creating interesting and effective content is critical.
Using videos in your web content, blogs and social media posts can certainly make them more interesting; even more shareable. But do they really impact your overall SEO? In a word: Absolutely!!
The level of impact videos have on your SEO depends on who you ask, what studies used as criteria and when they were conducted. WHY they have an impact is much easier to explain.
According to a survey conducted by Hubspot in 2016, 45% of survey respondents watched at least an hour of video content on Facebook and YouTube every week. Snapchat is surpassing Facebook in this realm, with users viewing about 10 billion videos per day. Viewers don’t just skim videos either, as is likely with simple text, or even photos. They spend more time absorbing the message the video depicts.
Because consumers pay very close attention to videos, using them can greatly enhance your content and more effectively market your brand. There must be a good reason that YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine out there. You can’t ignore the facts—video is huge for SEO!
Ways Videos Can Help Your SEO Strategy
Let’s look at some of the ways using videos can increase your SEO.
1. Search Engine Ranking Pages (SERP)
Google and other search engines are looking more at quality content than certain keywords for ranking purposes. But don’t think that just slapping any video on your page will necessarily help. As with any content, the video needs to be informative, relevant and interesting or Google will penalize you. Some best practices recommended for video SERP:
- Keep it brief. Engagement rates fall after 3 minutes, so adjust the length of your video accordingly.
- Create video-rich snippets. This is the thumbnail beside the description of the content on the page. They make your content stand out among your competitors.
- Transcribe the video script. You can’t put all your trust in Google to parse your video content. Transcribing the video to text helps the spiders crawl your content for relevance.
2. Click-through Rates
Click-through rate (CTR) is the ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement. Videos get better CTR because they stand out and are more refreshing than a bunch of text. Additional benefits can be gained by including an embedded video on your website or landing page.
3. Bounce Rate and Dwell Time
Bounce rate is measured by the irrelevance of search results, while dwell time measures the level of engagement levels with appropriate content. Long dwell time (at least 1-2 mins) is a sign that the search result is relevant. When your bounce rate lowers and your dwell time increases, Google prioritizes your site for searches that contain your keywords.
When Wistia looked at the top 100 highest trafficked pages from 2016 they found an interesting trend. “People spent 2.6x more time on pages with video than pages without.” “Time spent on site” is a quality and relevance metric.
4. Link Building and Sharing
Using videos versus text will almost triple the average number of links. Why? Because people prefer videos over text; it’s just that simple. If they are more apt to watch a video than read text, it goes without saying that they’re more likely to share that content.
Your SEO Strategy Should Definitely Include Video
You can’t ignore the power of video in your online strategy. Statistics have proven that they increase user engagement, which in equals more traffic, more links, better retention, and higher Google search result rankings.
Contact Philadelphia SEO for Growth to Improve Your Online Presence
An SEO strategy needs to include video to be most effective. Philadelphia SEO for Growth can help you build that strategy. We can assist you in establishing an online presence that captures customers’ interest, is ranked highly by search engines, generates leads and gets you found online. Philadelphia SEO for Growth can help you improve your SEO with a plan that works for your business. Contact us today to learn more!