Alex Meade
By Alex Meade on March 16, 2022
6 minute read

How Video Marketing Impacts SEO

Adding videos to your website can drastically improve your SEO ranking. Video marketing has become an increasingly popular tool for savvy digital markets. Today, more than 87% of marketers incorporate video into their digital marketing strategy. What makes video marketing compelling is that it can break down complex topics, which drives more people to your website and boosts your SEO ranking.

4 Ways Video Can Boost Your SEO Ranking

SEO and ranking are the foundations of digital marketing. A high SEO ranking can significantly contribute to the success of your business. Incorporating a video in your content mix can help you increase your SEO rankings. Here are four ways how video content can impact your SEO rankings. 

Google Penguin and Panda were algorithm updates created between 2011 and 2012 and have evolved every day since. These updates are filters designed to penalize thin or poor content from ranking and emphasize quality content. According to the latest ranking, consistent publication of high-quality content makes up 26% of Google’s algorithm ranking factors. One of the most critical metrics for SEO is the time someone spends on your page or site. Video entices site guests to stay longer, and they assist with making your site higher quality than those without video. 

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing your visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google or other search engines. The higher your website ranks, the more people can engage with your page.

Factors that affect SEO ranking include but are not limited to;

  • Keyword relevancy
  • Domain authority
  • Backlinks
  • On-page optimization

SEO graphic: optimization, keywords, traffic, ranking, video, backlinks, search,

Build Brand Awareness

As people search for the information, they are more likely to click on results that contain videos. By letting people know through Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) that your page has a video, you can increase click-through rates and drive more traffic to your website. Google updates its SERPS users with more information about their website and content through rich results known as snippets. SERPS help people learn what they will find on the page before they start to engage with your actual page. Google search on any topic will result in pages with videos appearing on the first page. 62% of general Google searches will result in a video Websites with video content are 53 times more likely to appear on the top page of google and rank higher than those without videos.

Metadata is Alt Text.

Transcribing your videos provides a few benefits: making your content more accessible for all of your users, like those who can’t hear or see the video. Another great reason to transcribe your videos is so you have a written draft that you can pull content from when posting on social media or other blogs. Once you have your video transcription, you can add closed captioning to your video. Closed captions increase the likelihood that someone will watch your video to completion by 80%. Transcriptions also improve SEO by allowing Google search engines to crawl your text. Google does not watch or listen to your videos, but it indexes text. A transcript enables search engines to ingest your multimedia content and index it accordingly. Therefore, a complete transcription of your video is essential. In addition, written content gives your page the ability to rank for longer tails keywords in the content. Lastly, to provide the best experience for your user, craft a well-designed thumbnail to improve click-through rates.

Better User Engagement

When visitors come to your website, you do not have much time to convince them to stay—this is where videos prove to be helpful. Videos not only grab your website visitor's attention but entice them to keep watching your videos till the end, increasing visitors' time spent on your site. People spend 2x longer on pages with video content than those without video and are more likely to get backlinks. Pages with videos get 300% more inbound links than those without videos.

When visitors spend more time on your page, this signals Google that you provide valuable content and answer the searchers' queries. So Google will rank your page higher. For example, users spend 88% more time browsing websites with videos. 

Google prioritizes content that provides value and helps the audience answer their questions. In a HubSpot study, nine out of ten people report wanting to see more videos from brands. By creating informative videos, you are sharing content that consumers value. As a result, Google rewards you by ranking your content higher if you provide a better answer to the audience with the correct information.

In addition, if people spend more time on your video content, there is a possibility they will dig deeper into your website and check out what other pages have to offer. As a result, this will improve page views and reduce bounce rate. With so many choices online, people can get distracted and leave a page immediately if they do not see what they are looking for—however, the video acts as an anti-bounce tool. Unlike text, one must watch a part of the video to understand its content.

Someone using the Google search tool on a laptopBuild Trust with Your Audience

Carefully planned and well-produced videos can help your customers believe in your product and services while helping build trust with your audience. The better your content is, the more your brand will build trust with its audience. Posting videos on social media can create emotions that written content can not—triggering them to search your brand through Google to gain more information about you. As a result, this will increase your Google ranking.

If people trust your content, they will have a reason to link to your video. As a result, this will drive high traffic to your website and a solid social media following. The more inbound and backlinks your website has, the higher your rank in the search engines. The Google search engine uses inbound links as indicators of the quality and trustworthiness of your content and brand. In essence, video content helps build inbound links, helping improve your website authority, credibility, and dependability.

Increase Traffic

Posting your videos on YouTube is a quick opportunity to earn quality traffic drastically improves your rankings. YouTube sees millions of users watching a billion videos every day. It is also the second most popular search engine. Diverting YouTube traffic to your website can help you increase your SEO ranking. In addition, video content can help you convert YouTube viewers to website visitors.

If you host a video on YouTube, you can add a link to your website to increase website traffic. Focus on the right keywords, title, description, and a compelling call to action to attract more visitors to your website. These tactics will help you to rank higher on YouTube search results. Using a clear call to action will encourage viewers to take the action they want. If your video is top-notch, you will earn linkbacks and referral traffic to your website, helping your website rank higher.

Man holding a video camera

Bottom Line

Video marketing popularity is significantly increasing because people love watching and engaging with them; every marketing strategy strives for higher engagement, so why not give it a shot? The critical take-a-way from this blog should be that videos are effective for marketing and SEO rankings. Videos help boost the online visibility of brands, drive more traffic and boost website rankings in the eyes of Google and other search engines.

Understand where you stand with SEO. Grade your website in seconds. Then learn how to improve it for free. 

New call-to-action

Published by Alex Meade March 16, 2022
Alex Meade

Get your team on the same page

Developing well-informed and well-written content is easier than you think.

Download the Content Strategy Starter Kit
Content-Strategy-Starter-Pack