How Video Impacts Your Site’s SEO Rankings

Google has been changing their search result listing, primarily by adding additional ads. With additional mobile searches we have seen Amplified Mobile Pages take over the top spots on Google (for specific queries). Search results are now returning images, answer boxes, and you guessed it, video within the top results. Each day nearly 5 billion videos are viewed on YouTube, making it the third most visited website in the world. With numbers like this it’s clear to see why 65% of marketers plan to increase their video budget.

It’s obvious that people are watching video — and that marketers therefore want to use more video — but how does it affect your SEO?

Time on site

Having videos on your site can help keep users interested in your page. This is useful when ranking a page and keyword. If a user searches for a term, clicks on your page, and stays on the page, this shows the search engines the page is related to the term. Now it’s important to create video that people will actually click and watch.

Search results

As mentioned above, Google has begun adding video to their search results for certain search terms. As the popularity of video increases we can expect to see more search results returning video within the results. By creating a compelling video that is related to the term being searched your site, or video, can be at the top of the results.

Backlinks

Now you’ve created an excellent video that’s on a landing page with great information. Start sharing your page with other related sites of your own, this is a great way to build some new backlinks to the site. With an awesome video on your page people will be more likely to share the page on their site. Backlinks are incredibly helpful when determining if a site can rank within the search engines.

Increase in click through rate

A page with a video typically has a 40% higher click thru rate than other pages/sites. The main reason for this is the rich-video snippets which appears near the results. Instead of text only, video thumbnails appear next to a search results which entices users to click. This is where users can see what will appear on the page, letting them know there will be a video for them to view.

Increase in conversions

Having video on your page can help increase conversions by 80%. If you told any business owner they could increase conversions by 80%, 99% of them would implement that trend. Videos can help reiterate your brand, product, services, etc. Users can see the product in use, can hear customer testimonies, both of which can help influence a purchase.

Once you have created some new videos for your site make sure to begin tracking your results. Compare a landing page’s conversion rate, time on page, and bounce rate to how the page previously performed.

Like any other piece of content it’s important to get your videos in front of people. You can create something amazing, but unless you share it with others, no one will see it. Find other sites that are related to your industry/niche and share your video with them. Share it on your email newsletter, on your social media accounts, and social bookmarking pages.

About the Author

Chris Hickman is the Founder and CEO at Adficient with 14 years of experience in search marketing and conversion optimization. In 2006 he founded Adwords Suspension and Google Penalty recovery service at GetBackonGoogle.com to help businesses and websites to get back on Google.

Originally published at Brandpoint.