The digital marketing landscape in 2017 has seen video content emerge as a critical component of effective SEO strategies. As the most highly consumed digital media, video has become essential for brands seeking to improve their search engine rankings and increase visibility. This article examines the specific strategies and techniques that businesses can implement to optimize their video content for better search rankings in 2017.
The Impact of Video on SEO Rankings
Video content has become a significant factor in search engine optimization, with statistics indicating its powerful impact on rankings. According to data from 2017, 62% of general searches on Google result in a video, demonstrating the prevalence of video in search results. For businesses, this represents a substantial opportunity to capture organic traffic through video optimization.
The effectiveness of video content for SEO is further evidenced by specific metrics. Posts with video links can attract up to 3x more visitors than other content types. Additionally, video content increases the likelihood of a website appearing on the first page of Google search results by 53 times. This substantial ranking potential explains why 81% of businesses place videos on their websites.
The investment in video marketing reflects its perceived value in SEO strategies. In 2017, more than 60% of marketers and small business owners planned to increase their investment in video marketing. Furthermore, 37% of marketers identified visual marketing as the most important form of content for their business, second only to blogging at 38%. For B2C marketers, 34% considered pre-produced video critical to content marketing success.
Consumer demand for video content also supports these marketing efforts. A 2016 survey revealed that 43% of consumers wanted to see more video content, indicating a clear market expectation for businesses to deliver engaging video material. This consumer preference, combined with the SEO benefits, explains why 7 out of 10 marketing professionals now engage in SEO with optimized videos.
Video Content Optimization
Creating high-quality, engaging video content is the foundation of successful video SEO. The content must be "shareable" and "linkable," meaning it should provide relevant and informative value that encourages viewers to share and publishers to link to. Businesses should focus on producing content that is not only optimized for search engines but also genuinely valuable to viewers.
The quality of video content directly impacts its SEO performance. Search engines collect data to determine whether a website matches their algorithms and consider how relevant the content is to users and how many viewers it attracts. Poor production quality, such as issues with camera work, audio, or lighting, can negatively impact rankings regardless of the content's value.
Making the best video content a priority is crucial. While businesses may include multiple videos on their website, Google typically lists only one video per search result. Crawler bots are often programmed to stop after finding the first video on a page, meaning additional videos may be overlooked. Therefore, businesses should strategically place their highest-quality, most relevant video first on each page.
The thumbnail image serves as a critical visual element for video SEO. The thumbnail acts as the first impression for potential viewers and significantly impacts click-through rates. Businesses should invest in creating compelling, professional thumbnails that accurately represent the video content and attract viewer attention.
Technical SEO for Videos
Technical optimization is essential for ensuring videos are properly indexed and ranked by search engines. Captions and transcripts play a vital role in video SEO by adding searchability to content. Captions allow videos to be viewed in silent mode, which is attractive to users watching in public places and broadens the audience to include deaf and hearing-impaired viewers.
From an SEO perspective, captions provide additional text content that search engine crawlers can index. This text offers additional opportunities for keyword inclusion and helps crawlers better understand the video's content. By including captions, businesses increase their video's searchability and improve its chances of ranking for relevant search terms.
Metadata optimization is another critical technical aspect of video SEO. This includes optimizing titles, descriptions, tags, and other metadata elements with relevant keywords. Businesses should ensure that metadata accurately reflects the video content while incorporating search terms that their target audience might use.
Video length and dimensions also impact SEO performance. Factors such as loading speed, mobile compatibility, and overall viewability affect how users interact with video content. Videos that are optimized for mobile viewing, with appropriate dimensions and efficient loading, have a higher chance of being watched completely, which positively impacts SEO metrics.
Page-Level Optimization for Video Content
Optimizing the webpage where videos are embedded is as important as optimizing the video itself. Search engines won't crawl and rank videos if the hosting pages are not properly optimized. Businesses should ensure that pages featuring videos are relevant, highly optimized, and provide context that supports the video content.
The relationship between the video and the webpage content is crucial. Businesses must ask whether the page relates to the embedded video or if the video is just generically placed. Generic pages with unrelated videos have low ranking potential. Instead, videos should be contextually relevant to the page content, creating a cohesive user experience.
When multiple videos are present on a single page, strategic placement becomes important. As previously noted, Google typically indexes only one video per page. If businesses include multiple videos on a page, they should ensure the most important or highest-performing video appears first. This prioritization helps ensure that search engines properly index the intended video content.
Page loading speed is another critical factor in video SEO. Pages with videos that load slowly negatively impact user experience and search rankings. Businesses should optimize video file sizes, implement lazy loading techniques, and ensure that hosting infrastructure can deliver video content efficiently.
Video Indexing and Discovery
For videos to appear in search results, they must be properly indexed by search engines. If a video is not appearing in search results, businesses can check its indexing status by searching for the video topic plus their brand name. If the video doesn't appear, submitting a video sitemap can help with discovery.
A video sitemap provides search engines like Google with metadata about the video, including its title, description, and thumbnail. This additional information makes it easier for search engines to discover and index video content. Various SEO tools and plugins can automatically generate video sitemaps when video content is detected on a website.
Monitoring a video's indexing status over time is particularly important for businesses that regularly update content or add new videos. Regular checking helps identify and resolve indexing issues promptly, ensuring that video content remains visible to the target audience.
Mobile Optimization for Videos
With the increasing prevalence of mobile device usage, optimizing videos for mobile viewing has become essential for SEO success. Mobile-friendly videos have a higher chance of being viewed completely, which positively impacts engagement metrics that search engines consider for ranking.
Several factors contribute to mobile optimization, including appropriate video dimensions, compressed file sizes for faster loading, and responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes. Businesses should test their videos across various devices and screen sizes to ensure a consistent, high-quality viewing experience.
The silent viewing experience is particularly important for mobile optimization. Many users watch videos on their mobile devices in public places where sound may not be appropriate. Captions and silent playback options address this user behavior and improve the accessibility of video content for mobile audiences.
Conclusion
Video SEO has become an essential component of comprehensive search engine optimization strategies in 2017. By implementing the techniques outlined in this article, businesses can improve their video content's visibility and ranking in search results. The key to successful video SEO lies in creating high-quality, engaging content that provides genuine value to viewers while implementing proper technical optimization, page-level SEO, and mobile-friendly design.
As the data indicates, video content offers substantial SEO benefits, including increased visibility in search results, higher organic traffic, and improved engagement metrics. By prioritizing video SEO and staying informed about best practices and algorithm updates, businesses can leverage this powerful medium to enhance their overall search marketing efforts in 2017 and beyond.