Video can transport you to fantasy lands full of drama, teach you how to solve difficult technical tasks and make you experience the full range of emotions from sadness to laughter. But can video help with SEO?
SEO is an abbreviation of search engine optimisation. It refers to the practice of optimising webpages and other digital content to rank higher in search engine results for specific keywords and phrases. The goal? To increase the quantity and quality of traffic to a website through organic search engine results.
SEO involves a combination of techniques including keyword research, on-page optimisation, technical optimisation and off-page optimisation. The goal is to create a website that search engines can easily find and understand, and that provides valuable and relevant content for users.
Here are four ways video can help SEO:
- Video is a popular and engaging form of content. The more people are entertained, the longer they stay on the platform which is providing the content, whether that’s your website or dominant social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube. When people watch a video on your site, they tend to spend more time on it than if they were just reading text and this increased time spent on your site can improve your search engine ranking.
- Video can help build backlinks. Backlinks are hyperlinks that take users from one webpage to another and form the strongest referral network in online search. Backlinks signal to search engines that other websites consider the content of the website to be valuable and relevant. Videos are a great way of building these as users are more likely to link and share video than other content.
- If you have a business that serves a local area, video can be a great way to improve your local SEO. You can create videos that showcase your products or services, or even create videos that highlight local attractions or events.
- Video can be optimised for search engines. Not only does this increase views, but it also increases traffic and watch time for your website. This can be achieved by:
- Conducting keyword research to identify the most relevant keywords for your video title, description and tags.
- Creating a catchy title.
- Writing a detailed video description using keywords, including a summary and any relevant links.
- Using detailed and specific tags to help search engines understand the content of your video.
- Adding captions, subtitles and transcripts make your content searchable. However, as these assist with making your content accessible, they must be created with people in mind rather than rankings.
- Optimising your video file for web delivery by compressing it for faster loading times and using an appropriate video format like MP4.
- Sharing your video by promoting it on social media, your website and other relevant platforms to increase its visibility and attract more views.
Video as a tool can boost your SEO strategy. By creating engaging, informative videos that you can optimise for search engines, you can improve your website’s visibility to drive more traffic to your website and increase your search results.
If you would like to find out more about video and optimising your content as part of your SEO strategy, get in touch with our team today.