It’s public knowledge that Google loves video content and the sole reason for that is because Google knows that people love video content and afterall, it’s the end user that is most important. As a user, would you rather read a gazillion word blog (I promise this blog is not a gazillion words!) or listen to the information through something a bit more engaging, like a video? I know what I’d rather do, and I’m fully aware of the irony as I type up this blog. Video is convenient and a quick way to digest new information, so if your content could be suitable for video, it might be worth spending some time planning some ideas.
If you would rather listen to how video impacts your SEO, then by all means listen to the brilliant ‘Looks Like We Made It’ podcast by Howell Media where Jess and I made a guest appearance, answering this very question!
The most important thing to note is that, unlike written text on a webpage, you can’t just place a video on your website or video hosting platform and expect it to be understood by everyone - it’s a visual piece of media, that without explanation will be lost on those with varying disabilities and search engine crawlers too.
Why is video good for SEO?
This blog might seem quite specific; why are we discussing video’s impact on SEO in particular? Well, there is a reason. Whilst video content is not crucial in order for your website to perform well in search, something to bear in mind is that the likes of Google LOVE video content. This means that if there is a video out there that they believe will fulfill a user’s search query, they will priortise this content within the search engine results page (SERP), placing it near the top of the first page of results - that’s prime real estate right there!
How can I make my video content discoverable?
As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, what we need to remember when it comes to video and other visual content is that we need to optimise it to make sure the search engine bots can understand exactly what purpose this media is serving, so that they can relay it to users who are asking questions that your content is providing an answer to. I must preface this by saying, there are a huge number of businesses online - a 2019 survey estimated that 83.4% of UK businesses had a website and I would be inclined to say that this will have grown over the past 3 years. I say this as it is a competitive space so by giving effort to your SEO strategy, you’re giving your business the best chance of being found by your target audience.
Here are 4 ways to optimise your video for Search Engines
1. Use a third party host for your video content
You have a couple of options when it comes to adding video to your website, you can either host the video natively on your website’s server or host it on another website, such as Youtube or Vimeo, and then embed the video on your website. There are a few reasons why we would recommend hosting your video on a third party website:
- It removes the memory burden from your website and this results in a faster website. Slow website experiences lead to frustrated visitors and this will knock your site’s credibility since site speed is another element that search engines consider when ranking website on the search engine results page.
- Hosts such as Google are search engines in their own right so this means your video, and thus your business, could be discovered there too - win win!
- These hosting platforms help you to easily add metadata (descriptions, tags and keywords) to your video to help it get found online.
2. Add a transcript to your video
I’ve said it a couple of times, but I’ll say it again - without context and proper metadata attached to your video, there are huge percentages of people who will not be able to understand your video. Another factor that search engines take into account when ranking your website is user satisfaction, so if your content is excluding huge numbers of people due to it’s lack of accessibility, this will be a negative strike against your website’s authority, in the eyes of search engines. Something that will make a huge difference is adding subtitles to your video. By adding a transcript, it gives your video an extra way for people and search engine crawlers to understand the content. People would then be able to access your video when watching it with no volume or using a screenreader too.