After Google’s Panda and Penguin updates, I have finally realized that ranking a website in the long-term is not just about increasing the number of links. It’s regarding creating high-quality content that will help you gain links naturally over time.
However, one kind of content that is underutilized in the SEO world is video. Although a lot of brands include video content into their online marketing strategies, most SEO doesn’t make it a high priority. Usually, they opt for creating various types of content like infographics, written content, images, etc.
If practised in the right way, video can be a compelling form of content and make a significant add on to your overall SEO strategy.
Define Goals and Avoid Common Trap:
I feel although the idea of producing a video might seem like a “nice” idea, it’s essential to remember that it must magnify your overall SEO strategy to generate an ROI (return on investment).
Failing to define goals clearly is a common SEO mistake and one that often is seen with content such as infographics.
Defining Goals:
From an SEO’s point of view, there are only two main goals that you possibly could have – to build links and generate social shares or to increase conversions.
Let’s start by looking at the first point mentioned above.
1. Building Links/Generating Social Shares
If it is executed well, a video can generate a large number of backlinks for a website; and often from some high-rank domains too. I’m not talking about a few links, either. I’m talking about hundreds and thousands of high-quality links.
The problem is there’s a lot of video content online unless there is an idea to create an exceptional video and have a great outreach/marketing plan, the success of the is going to be limited.
People don’t share any old rubbish nowadays. So, to achieve the target, it’s essential to think about who is the target audience that are going to share our video.
Essentially, the video has to give something to the viewer. It might make educate them, them laugh, shock them, amaze them, annoy them (or any combination of those as mentioned earlier). The point is it needs to invoke a strong emotional reaction that they’ll want to share it, either on their social media platforms or on their blogs, websites, etc.
2. Increase Conversions
Although some SEO experts might disagree with this, I believe that the job of an SEO expert isn’t necessarily to increase rankings or reach, but rather to convert the visitor into online sales/revenue for the client.
This is a two-part process: Drawing more visitors to a website and then optimizing the site so that more of those visitors convert into customers/clients who make a purchase.
Video content can be a fantastic way to increase conversions on just about any website. More brands are using videos on landing pages and on various other pages of their websites to keep visitors engaged and eventually, influence them to make a purchase.
Two better ways to increase conversions with video – by making use of rich snippets and by embedding a video on a landing page.
Video on the Landing Page
When a visitor opens a website, There’s only a little time to impress them and let them know and get engaged with what you have to offer. This is the key for a landing page. But nowadays days, users are so used to seeing rich media content on the internet that text content cannot keep them engaged.
Rich Snippets
Developing conversions with video isn’t only about what they see once they open your website or landing page, but also what they see before even getting there.
If you’ve observed Google’s search results recently, you would have seen a significant rise in the use of rich snippets, to be precise, video rich snippets.
Conclusion:
I believe that the reputation of online video presents a huge opportunity for SEO experts who are willing to get creative to achieve results. Making videos isn’t cheap, but it usually isn’t as expensive, either. If you’ve selected and marketed infographics before, you definitely can afford to produce a video that will generate a good ROI.
Remember, quality is very important when it comes to online video as it is when producing any other form of content.
Author Profile:
Rajat Jain is the Founder & CEO of ShootOrder – Digital Marketing Agency & Whizsky. He started his digital marketing blog to contribute to digital industry by sharing know-how’s of Digital Marketing. He believes in relying on an evidence-based thought and work process backed by the scientific method. He thinks that there should always be a ballet of these elements to bring out the best results for marketing. The two eyes to the embodiment of these ideas are – ShootOrder and Whizsky. ShootOrder is a Leading Digital Marketing Agency that has excelled in the niche of the Hyderabad market and expanding nationally. Whizsky is a Digital Media Publishing House that caters to the needs of the audience with trends and new founding in the field of digital marketing.