Google takes video SEO seriously, and so should you
What is Google video SEO?
Video SEO optimises web traffic for your video content on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yandex. Video SEO will optimise and maximise your presence on the search and related videos within video platforms, such as Brightcove.
While video content platforms like YouTube are search engines in one sense, they are also social networks. Optimising distribution on YouTube is different from optimising rankings on Bing and Google.
It’s why video SEO content is critical to get it right. Leaving the content public on YouTube, whether the content on YouTube or your website will rank, is primarily related to the authority of each page and user preference.
Why does Google video SEO matter so much?
Search engine users worldwide make 93,939 Google searches every second, meaning that website owners compete for traffic from over 1.8 billion other websites.
Thus, with his much traffic competition, how can content creators, marketers, and business owners outrank others in search engine results?
You could try many tried-and-true SEO strategies, but video SEO will be king in the content marketing stakes with more consuming visual content. Visual content is a much easier way to stand out; if you have transcripts, you can also rank for text and video SEO content.
This is why Google video SEO matters so much.
How SEO video marketing can get your brand noticed
Google’s algorithm has hundreds of ranking factors that not even Google knows them all. But what SEO experts have calculated is that Google's algorithm favours video content because videos primarily answer what visitors are searching for. For instance, 96% of consumers have watched an explainer video specifically to learn about a product or service.
It’s why 86% of consumers want brands to create more video content.
These numbers demonstrate that Google video SEO is not only needed for website searchers but has forced Google to promote video content in its search results.
This makes the benefits of videos explicit for businesses, marketers, and content creators: produce videos and get ranked.
Furthermore, adding more video content won’t just benefit your website’s rankings; it will provide more online presence to your branded content.
When brands produce video content, they provide their audiences with a direct link to their YouTube account, webinar content, or social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and even Twitter. As more visitors land on those pages, search engines recognise that they are popular and boost their rankings compared to competitors. Thus, video SEO will bring brands more customers from all their social media platforms and not only from rankings.
SEO experts consider backlinks a ‘significant ranking’ factor for websites – attracting topical backlinks (relevant websites linking to your website) boosts your credibility in search engine search results.
Creating videos is optimal for attracting more backlinks, as they are a form of top-of-the-funnel content. Top-of-the-funnel content is primarily educational to guide buyers down the buying journey to the final purchase stage.
How to rank with video SEO
Now that you know why it's critical to use Google video SEO in your SEO strategy, you're ready to begin planning on producing Google video SEO content. However, keep a few pointers in mind when you start the process.
Integrate videos on websites
Sadly, you can't just integrate a video into a webpage and expect results. If you want a Google video SEO strategy to work, videos must fulfil three criteria:
Be relevant
Google video SEO is about relevancy. Videos must be relevant to the web page's topic, or the video and on-page content will not rank in relevant searches and search terms.
Be exclusive
Videos need to provide information searchers cannot locate elsewhere (like product information, how-to videos, and exclusive tips).
Be professional
Videos must be professionally produced and edited, or they will not even attract an audience, nor will those who begin to watch remain watching.
Contextualise your videos
Contextualisation is about adding more to a webpage than the video itself. Meaning that SEO-optimised features are added to all videos. These are:
A compelling H1 title to attract people to the webpage
A video description
Timestamps to help viewers navigate the video (even better, use ‘snacks’ created by Snackable AI)
A ‘further viewing’ section to link related videos
Ensure captions are correct and make sense (some auto-generated captions only sometimes work!)
Adding these elements has numerous advantages. Audiences receive additional information and provide a convenient space to link readers to other web pages and products. Even more crucially, video content creators are creating easily indexable content for search engines – which will help the web page rank higher.
Include video transcripts and closed captions
83% of consumers watch muted videos, and 80% of watchers will likely watch the video in full if it is captioned or split into chapters.
Adding video transcriptions, chapters, and captions to videos helps the web page rank higher. Google's crawlers scan the copy for relatable keywords and rank pages accordingly. Another bonus is that AI-created transcriptions and chapters attract more voice search traffic and make content accessible to those unable to listen to video content.
Add transcripts, chapters, and closed captions, where machine learning finds the most powerful moments in your videos that web visitors wish to watch.
