The easily consumable format of videos makes them a great tool to communicate with your target audience. Search engines also acknowledge the importance of video content, pushing them higher in the search results. However, simply adding a video to your website will not boost your rankings. You require a more nuanced approach to push your search rankings with a video.
Using Google Search. Image credit: Firmbee via Unsplash, free license
If you haven’t tried video search optimization for your business before, it is better to hire an expert, like this Spring Hill SEO agency to gain their strategy. But first, you need to know how videos affect your search engine rankings.
Lower Bounce Rate
Whenever a new visitor lands on your website, you hope that they stay on the site longer. Having videos on your landing pages helps your website quickly capture the attention of your visitors. When your visitors start spending more time on your website, search engines like Google take note of it and start promoting your pages to more people by boosting their rankings. Moreover, people are more likely to explore your site when they spend a significant amount of time on your content, lowering the bounce rate of the website.
Better Click-Through Rate
Google often updates its SERPs to offer users more information about websites and their content. These rich snippets are designed to help people understand what they can find on a page before they click on it. When you add videos to your pages, Google displays them as rich snippets for relevant searches, increasing your chances of getting clicked on. While you put textual information about the video, you should also add visually appealing thumbnails for the video content. This, again, improves your click-through rate on the SERPs.
Improved Backlink Profile
When a user finds useful or interesting content on the internet, he/she tends to share it with others. If you publish quality video content on your website, the viewers are more likely to link to it. As the content starts to circulate on the internet, it will naturally get backlinks to the page where you have hosted the video. If you publish the content on third-party platforms like YouTube, you can earn backlinks and referral traffic by adding your website link to your channel information or video description.
More Appealing Google Business Profile Listings
Local business listings that have posts, images, and messages usually get a higher ranking as Google promotes brands that use Google Business Profile listings to their advantage. The search engine also rewards such brands with a spot in the Local Pack. Adding a video to your profile can get your Google business listings ranked in the Local Pack. You can take advantage of this opportunity by creating a compelling video that explains what your business is all about and describes your offerings in less than 30 seconds.
Where Should You Host a Video?
Consider the following factors while deciding whether you should host your video on YouTube or your website:
Control over Your Content
When you host the video on your website, you can customize the video player, include your branding, and regulate the user experience. On YouTube, you get less control over the branding and user experience and also need to comply with their policies.
Since YouTube is one of the largest search engines in the world, you can reach a broader audience on that platform. Hosting a video on your website may limit your reach.
Hosting your video on YouTube can help increase traffic and backlinks to your website, improving its SEO. YouTube videos often get a higher rank in search engine results.
While hosting videos on YouTube technically costs zero amount, hosting them on your website can be significantly costly due to the additional server resources and bandwidth requirements.
Conclusion
Due to the immersive nature of video content, they have the potential to engage your audience and offer SEO advantages. Over the years, videos have proven their ability to boost the online visibility of brands, drive more traffic, and boost search engine rankings. So, if you haven’t considered using videos for SEO, you should start doing it now.
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