Video SEO or VSEO is a category that has attracted the attention of SEOs these days, which we will discuss in this article.
Since the Google Penguin and Panda updates, many semesters have realized that ranking a website, in the long run, is not just about building a lot of links, it is also about creating high-quality content that naturally generates links with Time attracts. However, one type of SEO that is still underutilized is VSEO; Which means video optimization for search engines. Although many brands have incorporated video content into their overall online marketing strategies, most SEOs do not make it a high priority. Usually, they choose different types of content (eg, infographics, images, written content, etc.). When used correctly, video can be a very powerful piece of content and make a significant contribution to your overall SEO strategy. Before explaining about SEO video, it is appropriate to say that if you are interested in learning SEO, do not miss the face-to-face course of SEO Academy University.
Table of Contents
What is video SEO?
Video SEO means optimizing your website videos to rank in search results pages based on keyword searches. Without video SEO, your videos will not rank high in Google and other search engines. If the video is not SEO and no one can find your content, you will have almost no conversion rate. We have explained it in this article.
The importance of setting goals in video SEO
Although the idea of producing a video sounds like a good idea, it’s important to remember that it should define your overall SEO strategy and generate a return on investment (ROI). If you fail to define your goals early on, it will cost you (or your client) dearly. An expense that can be spent elsewhere and in a better way.
Not properly defining goals is a common mistake in SEO and is often seen in content such as infographics. Many SEO masters create an expensive and attractive-looking infographic without thinking enough about the overall goal. They think with the idea that “infographics build links” they want infographics to increase conversions or increase high-quality traffic (ie visitors who are likely to convert to paying customers) or simply benefit from providing on-page SEO (eg links). The same goes for video content. You have to know what you want to get out of it. Without knowing this, it will be difficult to imagine and launch a production that hopes to successfully attract the intended audience and achieve the intended goals.
Video SEO: Optimizing video for search engines
What are your goals for SEO? In terms of SEO, you may have only two main goals, building links and building social shares or increasing conversions. Let’s start with the first advantage mentioned above.
1- Creating links and creating social shares
If this is done well, a video SEO can generate a lot of links for the website and often they are from some reputable domains too. I’m not just talking about a few limited links. I’m talking hundreds or thousands of high-quality links in some cases. The problem is that online video content is overwhelming unless you create an exceptional video and have a great advertising or marketing plan. Otherwise, its success will be limited.
People don’t link or share any old garbage these days. So, to get the success you’re looking for, it’s important to think about who you want to share the video with and who you want to link to. Your video should offer something to the viewer. This may make them laugh, educate, or amaze. Or even shock or annoy them (or even a combination of those).
The point is that we have to create a strong emotional reaction in them. So that they want to share it, tweet or share it by clicking the button, or even write a post and article about it on their blog or website (with a link to your site, of course). Perhaps one of the best examples of a video that generates a lot of backlinks is the viral video from DollarShaveClub.com.
Before the commercials, hardly anyone had heard of Club Dollar Shave, but soon after the film was produced and sold, that all changed. Oddly enough, the Dollar Shave Club video was not produced for link-building purposes. It was produced with the aim of increasing brand awareness. But in the modern world of SEO or marketing, at least when it comes to online content, brand awareness and link building are directly related.
Let me explain with this example. According to YouTube, the movie Dollar Shave Club was uploaded on March 6, 2012. After uploading, it didn’t take long for the video to go viral. It caught the company’s attention in part because of its excellent PR and outreach strategy and in large part thanks to its highly entertaining concept.
Within hours, the site was featured on leading news sites across the web including Mashable, The Next Web, Techcrunch, and hundreds of others. Within a month or so, it was featured on many other prominent sites that most SEOs work hard to link to, including Forbes and BusinessWeek. This is great for brand exposure, but what does this have to do with link-building? Each of the prominent news websites listed above linked in their articles to Dollar Shave Club and the hundreds of other sites that reported on the video.
Around March 2012 (at the time of uploading the video), Dollar Shave Club had attracted almost 18,000 backlinks and has been attracting a fairly large number of backlinks every month since then. If you take a look at the cumulative view of backlinks since uploading the video, you’ll see that it has attracted almost 90,000 links to date, and as people continue to write about it (like Neilpatel), the site continues to gain links monthly.
The reason for this is that this video has attracted the attention of its intended audience and as a result has become viral and attracted links. It was funny and new and had its target audience in mind. There was also a great communication strategy available that was responsible for turning off the video and starting the link-building process. If you want to improve your video SEO, here are some things to note:
MOZ’s Whiteboard Friday videos
As I mentioned earlier in this guide, videos don’t necessarily have to be funny to attract links. They just have to give their viewers what they want to see. A good way to do this is to produce an educational video.
Every Friday, Moz posts a “Whiteboard” style video on its blog. Due to their regularity, these videos have become known as “White Friday” videos. These videos not only attract the attention of many searchers around the world but also attract a significant number of links, embeds, and social shares. So they increase traffic for SEOmoz. According to Open Site Explorer, a particular Whiteboard, Friday’s video received 402 links from 37 referring domains and over 1,000 social shares. Proof once again that people love video content.
What should I learn from all this? In both cases above (DollarShaveClub.com and Moz), video content has been responsible for the success of attracting a significant number of inbound links and social shares for the website in question. This proves that when used correctly, videos can make a significant improvement to your SEO efforts.
However, both of these videos successfully attracted links for different reasons. For Dollar Shave Club, it was all about the video design and production strategy. Mike Dubin, founder of Dollar Shave Club, comes from a video design background and is a big part of the video’s success. In the early days, nobody knew about Dollar Shave Club, so the outreach process played a big role in getting things going.
With Moz, there is probably no call to attract links and social shares, as Moz already has a very large and loyal community of followers who are likely to share their content naturally. For them, simply producing a high-quality video targeted to the interests of their fans is enough to attract links.
This is important to keep in mind when using videos for SEO because all sites are different and therefore require a different approach. Ask yourself: Do I already have enough high-quality traffic to automatically attract links, or do I need to do advertising services? And if so, how much?
It’s also important to remember that it doesn’t matter how good your video app is if your video isn’t of exceptional quality.
It’s tempting to cut costs, cut margins, and produce substandard video. But it will not work in the long run. Ask yourself: Is my target audience interested in this topic? Will I link to it if I come across it? Does it evoke emotion? If you answered no to any of these questions, go back and think again before making your video.
One last tip: To get the full SEO potential of your videos, consider hosting the videos on your website (instead of YouTube or Vimeo). This is because people will link back to your domain, which will also help your overall SEO efforts. This reduces potential downside exposure or equity.
Also, on most video hosting sites you can link to your content from the video web page. Don’t forget to do this! This is a free link.
2- Increase video SEO conversions
Although some SEOs may disagree with this, I believe that the job of an SEO is not necessarily to increase rankings, but to increase sales and online income for the client. This is a two-part process: getting more visitors to a website and then optimizing the website so that more of those visitors turn into paying customers.
Video content can be fantastic for increasing conversions on almost any website. In fact, more brands than ever are using videos on their landing pages and various other pages of their websites to engage visitors and ultimately convince them to make a purchase. There are two main ways to navigate with video: embedding a video on a landing page and using rich snippets.
Video SEO on the landing page
Once a visitor lands on your site, you have seconds to impress them and engage them with your offers. That’s the whole point of a landing page. But these days, people are so used to seeing rich media content on the Internet that, frankly, textual content often doesn’t entertain them.
Based on this, I’m sure it’s no surprise that embedding video on your website not only increases the length of time visitors stay on the site but also increases the number of conversions to paying customers, which ultimately tells us what SEO is all about.
Product videos
Product videos are perhaps the most common way retailers use video content to increase their website conversion rates. Hundreds and thousands of retailers are using product videos these days, and it’s easy to see why. According to Invodo, 52% of consumers say that watching promotional videos about a product makes them feel more confident about their purchase.
Explanatory or introductory videos
Not all businesses have a website to sell their products, as some businesses offer services. For these, you can increase conversions by using explainers or intro videos. There are many different styles for these videos, and honestly, there’s no exact science as to which style works best. It is more about producing a video that explains or introduces the client’s business effectively and engagingly.
Dropbox found that by adding this video to their home page, they increased their conversion rate by over 10%, and given that their home page gets over 750,000 visitors per month, this means that it’s a signup issue. It boosts names to several thousands of sign-ups per day and undoubtedly generates huge ROI.
On the other hand, this video introduces a local mobile line company by explaining their services, introducing the people behind the business, and showing their services in action. It has the same duration as Dropbox video but is presented in a different style. When placed on the “About Us” page of the client’s website, it increased the overall conversion rate by about 7%.
Video SEO Rich Snippets
Increasing conversions with video isn’t just about what you show your visitors after they land on your website, it’s also about what you show your visitors before they land on your website. If you’ve been paying attention to Google search results lately, you’ve noticed a significant increase in the use of something called snippets, and in particular Video SEO Rich Snippets.
If you are not familiar with Video SEO Rich Snippets, you can check out Google’s official description.
Google displays information about the embedded video on the page and lets the searcher know that a video awaits them if they click on your website. Simply put, Rich Snippets of Video help you stand out from the other 9 search results on that particular page and thus, searchers are more inclined to click on your result, which increases traffic to your website.
You can show your thumbnails and video duration to searchers. If you want to maximize conversions, make sure the thumbnail is prominent and covers the gist of what’s in the video.
How to use Rich Snippets for video SEO?
For your video’s Rich Snippets to show up in Google search results, you need to host the video yourself. If you’re using WordPress, there is a solution to hosting your videos with YouTube, which is to use the Yoast plugin, but it’s highly recommended that you host your content yourself if possible.
Hosting your videos yourself has other SEO benefits compared to using a free video host like YouTube cited here. Once you’ve hosted and uploaded your video to your site, it’s just a matter of telling Google about the video. To do this, you need to add the required Schema.org code to your page and submit an XML sitemap to Google’s Webmaster Tools.
It’s a bit tricky, but once you know how to do it once, it’s very easy to do it again and again. Plus, if you’re already ranking for any high-volume keywords, it’s worth a try because the increase in conversion rates and traffic to your site will be significant.