Video content has recently emerged as an increasingly powerful tool for improving SEO.
SEO remains the pivotal way to gain more targeted traffic to your website and an increase in visibility.
Not only do videos help capture readers’ attention, they also add an aspect to your content that encourages engagement.
Engagement is one of the key criteria Google uses to decide your website’s rankings, presenting how video content comes full circle in improving your SEO!
Here is a helpful video by Ignite Visibility about whether you should add videos to your blog posts:
5 Reasons Video Content Improves SEO
Let’s delve into 5 reasons why incorporating videos into your content will help improve your SEO:
1. Increased User Engagement and Retention
There are a number of engagement metrics that are vital factors for SEO. Two of these that go hand in hand are your website’s bounce rate and dwell time.
Your bounce rate refers to the percentage of users who leave your website after viewing only one page. You want to aim to keep this percentage low as users that “bounce” may be doing so because your content is not intriguing or detailed enough, generally not answering their query.
Your dwell time is the amount of time users spend on your website page before leaving. You want to aim for this to be as high as possible, as it can exemplify that your content is high-quality.
82% of consumers enjoy video content as it’s highly engaging and can communicate topics more effectively and efficiently. It is becoming more difficult to capture users’ attention but videos remain a great strategy to combat this.
Including videos in your content often results in users staying on the page longer, increasing your dwell time and reducing your bounce rate. In fact, users spend 88% more time on pages that incorporate video content than those who do not. These metrics will signal to Google that your content is relevant and interesting, boosting your rankings.
2. Higher Click-Through Rate and Competitive Advantage
Click-through rate is another metric that is important for increasing your rankings and visibility. It measures the percentage of visitors who click on your website page from the search engine results page.
Since videos grasp attention more effectively than pictures and text alone, users will often remember your content more easily. They will begin to associate your website with digestible, intriguing content that utilises techniques, such as videos, to display information.
This association may be subconscious but nonetheless, it is likely to have a knock-on effect on visitors choosing your website again and again.
By including videos in your content, you can position your brand as an expert in the industry that creates clear and useful content. This is a key goal when creating content and can be the element that sets you apart from your competitors.
3. Enhanced Backlink Potential
Backlinks, which are links from other websites to your website, are a critical factor Google uses to rank your website. Receiving backlinks from high-quality websites implies that other websites find your content valuable enough to reference. This results in so many positive effects ranging from increased domain authority to visibility.
It’s only natural that being seen as valuable and relevant by other great websites, perhaps even leaders in your industry, will present your website as authoritative and drive traffic from other websites to yours.
Other websites are much more likely to link to and share video content. This can be video content you have incorporated from other platforms such as YouTube. However, it’s even more likely if the videos are created by you.
In the same way that you embed videos in your own content, if you create an original “how to” video related to your niche, other professionals may embed it within their websites.
4. Improved Mobile SEO
58% of global internet traffic now comes from mobile devices. Therefore, mobile optimisation must be focused on in your SEO strategy.
Thankfully, videos can help with your mobile optimisation too! It’s easier to watch a video on a smaller screen than to read long pieces of text. It’s also important to consider that users seeking information on their mobile devices may be outside or at work, leading them to seek shorter forms of content.
By embedding videos in your content, you can receive increased mobile engagement and overall better mobile optimisation. A user’s experience is prioritised by Google; therefore, how mobile-friendly your website is acts as another key factor Google considers when ranking your website.
5. Opportunities for Rich Snippets
Rich snippets are usual Google search result snippets but with extra data displayed, such as videos. They display the video thumbnail next to your page’s title and meta description which is a great way to make your website stand out in search results.
These snippets are likely to increase traffic to your website by making your page more recognisable in search results. In turn, this can create positive ripple effects for your overall marketing strategy by increasing brand awareness, especially when you are creating your own videos.
A useful tip when creating your own videos is to upload them to YouTube too, as this can help you rank on YouTube as well as on search.
How Lumen SEO Can Help
We at Lumen SEO can take care of your whole SEO strategy, including keyword research, link building, content writing and technical SEO. You can learn more about what an SEO agency, like ours does, here.
If you like the sound of working with us, we offer free, no-obligation SEO audits on business websites. To claim yours, simply enter your details here and we’ll get a free SEO audit to you within 7 days. It will include the strengths and weaknesses of your website along with the top three aspects you should focus on improving, in order to enhance your business’ ranking.
For a friendly chat about the SEO services we provide here at Lumen SEO, contact our SEO consultants today. Alternatively, you can message us on either our LinkedIn or Instagram pages.
Written by Viktoria, for Lumen SEO.
