The Secret Information to VSEO: Video and search engine optimisation
Since the updates from Google Penguin and Panda, many SEOs have finally realized that long-term ranking of a website is not just about creating a large number of links. It's also about creating quality content that will naturally attract links over time.
One type of SEO that is still underutilized is VSEO: the optimization of video search engines. Although many brands include video content in their general online marketing strategies, most SEOs don't place a high value on it. Usually they choose to create various other types of content (e.g. infographics, images, written content, etc.).
When used correctly, video can be an extremely powerful form of content and can make a significant contribution to your overall SEO strategy in several ways.
Avoid a common trap and define your goals
While the idea of producing a video might seem like a “nice” idea, it's important to keep in mind that it should complement your overall SEO strategy and generate a return on investment (ROI).
If you don't define your goals in the initial stages, not only will the video cost you (or your client) a large amount of money, but it will also be money down the drain that could have been better spent elsewhere.
Failure to clearly define goals is a common SEO mistake that often occurs with content such as infographics.
Many SEOs will commission the creation of an expensive, cool-looking infographic without thinking enough about the overall goal. You will be dazzled by the idea that "infographics create links" without thinking about whether the infographic is supposed to drive conversions, drive high-quality traffic (that is, visitors who are likely to convert to paying customers), or just off-page content provide SEO benefits (ie links).
This also applies to video content. You need to know what to do with it. Without knowing this, it will be difficult to conceive / commission a production that has the hope of successfully captivating the intended audience and leading them to your desired goals.
What are your goals?
From an SEO standpoint, there are really only two main goals you could possibly have – to create links and generate social shares or increase conversions.
Let us first consider the first benefit mentioned above …
1. Create links / generate social shares
When done well, a video can generate a large number of links for a website. and often from some fairly reputable domains. I'm not just talking about a few links, either. I'm talking about hundreds or thousands of high quality links in some instances.
The problem is that there is so much video content online that unless you create an exceptional video and don't have a great contact / marketing plan, success will be limited.
People don't link or share old trash these days. In order to achieve the success you want, it is important that you really think about who you want to share the video and who you want to associate it with.
Essentially, your video has to offer something to the viewer. It could make them laugh, educate them, amaze them, shock them, or annoy them (or even a combination of these). The point is, it has to generate an emotional response strong enough to share by either clicking the Tweet / Share button or posting about it on their blog / website (with a link back to yours Website). Naturally).
DollarShaveClub.com
Perhaps one of the best examples of a video that has generated a large number of backlinks is the "viral" video from DollarShaveClub.com (above).
Hardly anyone had heard of Dollar Shave Club about a year ago, but shortly after they produced and marketed the video, everything 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. In the modern world of SEO / marketing, however, brand awareness and link building are directly related, at least when it comes to online content.
Let me explain with a timeless viral example.
According to YouTube, the video was uploaded to the Dollar Shave Club on March 6, 2012. Once uploaded, it didn't take long for the video to go viral. Partly due to a great PR / outreach strategy and in large part thanks to its very amusing concept, it gained a lot of attention for the company.
Within hours, it was featured on leading internet news sites including Mashable (pictured above), The Next Web, Techcrunch, and literally hundreds of others. Within a month or so it was also being featured on many other leading websites that most SEOs would work extremely hard to get links from like Forbes and BusinessWeek.
That's great for brand awareness, of course, but what does that have to do with link building?
Every single one of the leading news sites listed above was linked to Dollar Shave Club in their articles, as were the hundreds of other sites that covered the video.
In fact, this screenshot (which was taken from MajesticSEO at the time) shows how successful the video was for Dollar Shave Club in terms of SEO.
As you can see, the Dollar Shave Club attracted around 18,000 backlinks as of March 2012 (when the video was uploaded) and has attracted a relatively large number of links every month since then.
If you look at the cumulative view of the backlinks gained since the video was uploaded (roughly 12 months ago) (see the image below), you will see that it has attracted nearly 90,000 links to date and of course the website is still links attracting month as people keep writing about it (like me).
This is because the video resonated with its target audience and, as a result, went viral and attracted links. It was fun, original and kept an eye on the target audience.
There was also an excellent outreach / PR strategy in place that was responsible for getting the video up and running and starting the link building process.
These are all things to consider when using videos for SEO.
SEOmoz.org Whiteboard Friday
As I mentioned earlier in this guide, videos don't have to be funny to get links. All you have to do is provide the viewers with something they want to see. A great way to do this is by making an educational video.
Every Friday SEOmoz.org publishes a whiteboard-style video on its blog. Because of the regularity of these videos, they are known as "Whiteboard Friday" videos. Not only do these videos attract a lot of attention from SEOs around the world, but they also attract a significant amount of links, embeds, and social shares. hence increasing traffic for SEOmoz.
According to Open Site Explorer (pictured above), a given Whiteboard Friday video received 402 links from 37 referring domains and well over 1,000 social shares. Yet another proof that people love video content.
What should I learn from it?
In both of the above cases (DollarShaveClub.com and SEOmoz.org), the video content was responsible for successfully attracting a significant number of inbound links and social shares to the website in question. This shows that if used properly, videos can add a huge boost to your SEO campaign.
However, both videos successfully attracted links for different reasons.
For the Dollar Shave Club, it was all about the strategy of video seeding / outreach. Mike Dubin, the founder of the Dollar Shave Club, came from a video seeding background that obviously played a huge role in the video's success. Nobody knew about the Dollar Shave Club in the early days, so the outreach process definitely played an important role in getting things going.
With SEOmoz it is likely that no contact has been made to gain links / social shares as SEOmoz already has an extremely large, loyal community of followers who are likely to share their content naturally. For them, it is enough to simply produce a high quality video targeting their fan base to gain links.
It is important to keep this in mind when using videos for SEO as all websites are different and therefore require a different approach. Ask yourself: Do I already have enough quality traffic to automatically attract links or do I need to get in touch? And if so, how much?
It's also important to remember that it doesn't matter how good your ladder diagram is if your video isn't of exceptional quality. In this case, not many links will be attracted.
It is tempting to cut corners and produce a non-standard video to keep costs down. However, it won't pay off in the long run. Ask yourself: will my target audience be interested in this? Would I link to it if I came across it? Does it evoke an emotion? If you answered no to any of these questions, go back and think things over before you produce your video.
One last thing: To get the full SEO potential of your videos, you should host videos on your own website (instead of Youtube or Vimeo). The reason for this is because people are linking back to your domain which also helps your overall SEO efforts. The potential downside would be reduced exposure or stocks.
Also, most video hosting websites allow you to access your content from the video web page. Do not forget that! It's a free link 🙂
2. Increase conversions
While some SEOs may disagree with this, I believe that an SEO's job is not necessarily to improve rankings, but rather to increase online sales for the customer.
Obviously, this is a two-part process: attracting more visitors to a website and then optimizing the website so that more of those visitors become paying customers / customers.
Video content can be awesome for driving conversions on almost any website. In fact, more brands than ever are using video on landing pages and on various other pages of their sites to motivate visitors and ultimately persuade them to buy.
There are two ways to increase conversions with videos: embed a video in a landing page and use large snippets.
Video on a landing page
When a visitor lands on your website, you have literally seconds to impress them and immerse themselves in what you have to offer. This is the whole point of a landing page. But nowadays people are so used to seeing rich media content online that, quite frankly, text content often doesn't concern them.
Accordingly, I'm sure you won't be surprised that embedding a video on your website not only increases the length of time visitors spend it, but also increases the number of conversions to paying customers, which ultimately it does. What is SEO all about?
Product videos
Product videos are perhaps the most common way retailers use video content to increase their website's conversion rate. Hundreds and thousands of retailers use product videos these days, and it's easy to see why.
According to Invodo, 52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them feel more secure when making a purchase.
Check out the screenshot above from online retailer Zappos. It shows one of their product videos used on the Levi Jeans for Women page. According to econsultancy, Zappos found that sales of products with product videos increased by 6% to 30%.
Explanatory / introductory videos
Obviously, not every company with a website has a product to sell as some companies are service minded.
You can increase the conversions for these with the help of explanatory / introductory videos. There are different styles for these videos and frankly there isn't an exact science as to which style works best. It's more about producing a video that effectively and engagingly explains / introduces a customer's business.
Dropbox found that they increased their conversion rate by over 10% by adding this video to their homepage. When you consider that their homepage receives over 750,000 visitors a month, it means that the number of logins has increased by several thousand every day and has undoubtedly achieved a huge ROI.
This video introduces a local mobile bars company by explaining the service, introducing the company's employees, and showing their services in action. It's similar in length to the Dropbox video but presented in a different style. Embedding it in the "About Us" page of the customer's website increased their overall conversion rate by around 7%.
Rich snippets
Increasing conversions with videos is not just about what you show the visitor once they land on your website, it's also what you show the visitor before they even get there.
If you've recently noticed Google's search results, the use of what are known as rich snippets, and video rich snippets in particular, has increased significantly.
If you are new to rich snippets, you can check out Google's official explanation in the video above. Essentially, a site with video-rich snippets in the SERPs looks like this:
As you can see, Google is showing information about the video embedded on the page and notifying the Googler that there is a video waiting for them in case they click on your website.
To put it simply, video-rich snippets can help you stand out from the other nine search results on that particular page. Therefore, searchers are more likely to click your result, which increases traffic to your website.
You can show searchers a thumbnail of your video and the length of your video. Make sure that the thumbnail stands out and sums up what the video is about if you want to maximize conversions.
How do you use rich snippets for videos?
In order to show large snippets for your video in Google search results, you need to host your video yourself. If you're using WordPress, there is a workaround for hosting your videos on YouTube using the Yoast plugin. However, it is definitely recommended that you host your content yourself whenever possible.
There are a number of other SEO benefits of hosting your videos yourself rather than using a free video host like YouTube as documented here.
Once you've hosted your video and embedded it on your website, all you need to do is tell Google about the video. To do this, you need to add the necessary Schema.org code to your page and submit an XML sitemap in Google's Webmaster Tools.
It's a bit of a chore, but once you know how to do it it's pretty easy to do over and over again. If you are already ranking for high volume keywords it is worth the effort as the increase in conversions should bring significantly more traffic to your website.
Conclusion
The popularity of online videos presents a tremendous opportunity for SEOs willing to get creative to get results. Video production isn't always cheap, but it's usually not as expensive as people think either. If you have previously commissioned and marketed infographics, you can definitely afford to produce a video and use VSEO that will generate good ROI for you / your client.
Remember that quality is just as important in online video as it is in producing any other content.
About the Author: Josh Hardwick is the founder of ShortyMedia, a leading production company specializing in viral, corporate and web videos. He is also a freelance SEO and loves producing great content and creating links.