Your brand needs SEO – can video help?

We’ve all heard of SEO to the point of fatigue. You also know that it’s a necessity to cut through cyber clutter. But do you have an understanding of how it works, and how video can help improve your SEO

SEO: myth or mystery?

Neither. Rather, it’s a scientific way of increasing your visible presence on SERPs – or search engine results pages. In simple terms, your page shows up more often on relevant searches. This happens only when your website ranks higher.

SEO is an effective way to get people to drive traffic to your website, get people to go through the content, and eventually aid in converting them. When done well, SEO ensures that your target audience sees your website first (or one of the first) – which is crucial to your digital marketing strategy.

Why video to boost SEO?

You already know by now that people read less and watch more. Pause a moment and think about yourself: When was the last time you read a full article online or offline, as compared to watching videos that come your way?

Almost as a response to this shift in media consumption, search engines are prioritizing websites with videos. Google – the leader – puts websites with videos on top of the page, and with good reason.

All search is online search

For all of us, information comes from Google. Search starts with Google. Answers come from Google. Today, as much as 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine– now you know why it’s critical to get on to page one.

That’s not enough. The top three results on the first page garner up to 55% of all clicks. So all your efforts should be driven towards being on top.

And what’s the toss-off between the top three? Users are impatient – they want quick information and aren’t willing to read reams to text. So they look for the ubiquitous play button. If your landing page has none, sorry, they move to the next link.

Videos help increase your SERP rank

As mentioned earlier, search engine results pages (SERPs) are the yardstick of any SEO performance. Videos help to drive 157% more click-through traffic from SERPs.

Most people quit a webpage with no videos. This is known as ‘bounce rate’, but add a video to your page and visitors spend twice as long hanging around.

There’s another critical way videos can help boost your SEO. If your video has high quality content, you’re likely to get backlinks which in turn drives even more traffic.

Quality videos mean quality SEO

As always, the quality of your content matters – the so-called ‘unicorn content’ that delivers most of your traffic and high click-through rates.

Because video is the magic wand in your marketing mix, but its magical powers wane if the content quality is poor. Top drawer will get you top order results, and viewers keep coming back like repeat customers.

Bad videos can backfire

Google also tracks the amount of time people spend on your webpage. So while a video can pump up your rank in SERPs, and people do land up on your site, low quality content in your video makes them leave your page in a hurry.

That relays the message back to the search engines that your site isn’t of much worth. Your viewership plummets and your rank crashes.

Videos are good, but good videos are better

Just any video can boost your SEO temporarily. And the more videos, the better. But SEO is an open-ended process, always a WIP. So you need to feed your webpages with quality videos rather than quantity.

Remember, when it comes to video, one good piece of content is far better than ten videos that are substandard. Not only will users exit quickly, but the overall impression of your site also makes sure that they never come back.

In contrast, that one good video you produce will pull more traffic. And the impact it makes ensures that the same users visit again – at which time you need to lure them with more high-quality videos. And the cycle goes on.

How to make good videos? Watch this space.