You may have heard somewhere that you need a video on your website to help its search engine ranking. Is that true? Well, yes and no. Videos do have a lot of SEO juice. People love videos. They are engaging and interesting. They are a great way to convey information. However, how does a
video boost website SEO? We will go over four key SEO metrics and some best practices for using video to boost website SEO.
Videos can help you rank better in search engines, give you a higher Click Through Rate, or CTR, offer lower bounce rates and give you quality backlinks. Now, how do videos rank in SERPs (search engine ranking pages)? Well, ranking on Google’s first page is your priority. Webpages with videos are more likely to rank on the first page of Google results. Why? Google prioritizes video results, especially if you use YouTube videos.
What are the best practices for video SERP?
- Keep your video short – videos should be less than 4 minutes. Research has shown that engagement rates begin to fall after 4 minutes.
- Create rich-video snippets – these are the thumbnails beside the description of the content on the page.
- Transcribe your script – Google is getting good at parsing video script for meaning. However, transcribed script helps the spiders crawl your content for relevance.
Why are videos so important to boost your website’s SEO?
Video click through rates are higher than plain text. This happens primarily because of the rich-video snippets you create. These video thumbnails advertise quality video content and make results with embedded video stand out in users’ minds. YouTube automatically creates these thumbnails. They know how important these snippets are. However, you should not rely on YouTube to do all the work for you. Rich video snippets from your YouTube channel take users to YouTube, not your website. You won’t get any SEO juice from users who see your video on YouTube rather than on your website. Therefore, you should embed the video directly in your site. A good place to put it is a landing page with a clear call to action. Sites like YouTube offer increased reach but for boosting your website, you need to have the video embedded on your website.
Videos are “sticky”. The average online attention span is less than eight seconds according to research. Most sites have a high bounce rate. Bounce rate refers to the practice of people leaving your website after viewing a single page. This will hurt your SERP ranking, not to mention having people leave your site quickly reduces potential sales. Video is a great way to get people to stay on your website.
Videos help increase page authority. Keeping people on your website helps improve your page authority. Sure, it’s not the only factor, but it is a factor. The longer people remain on your site, the more likely Google is to think that your content is worthwhile.
Videos help
build links. Remember, it’s people who are creating links to your content. People like videos, even people with their own related websites. Website owners like to link to videos on their sites to get that SEO juice and this will help you get backlinks.
So, as you can see a video can really boost your website’s SEO. Videos are valuable and interesting, relevant and engaging. People remain on your site longer and other sites are more likely to link to you. Using videos can be a real winning strategy. Do you want more winning SEO strategies for your website? We invite you to keep reading our blog.
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