Improve Google Ranking with Video

Google Ranking and Your Video Content

Every business dreams of getting itself on the top line and page one of search engine results. There are a variety of ways to do this, none of them completely guaranteed. It’s one reason why search engine optimisation (SEO) is such as complicated business.  

Research by Forrester, however, suggests you are 50 times more likely to rank on the first page of Google if you have video on a page compared to if you have traditional written content and images. 

Google, which acquired YouTube some years back, is a big fan of video, so it’s no surprise that this is a ranking factor. 

The way in which video works to improve your SEO, is a little more nuanced than Google simply loving it, however. Video changes visitor behaviour in subtle but important ways. People, for instance, are likely to spend a longer time on a web page if it has a video and that alone can affect  your ranking. 

More People Link To You

Research shows that people are 3 times as likely to link to a blog post or web page that has a video than one that doesn’t. Why is this important? One of the ranking factors for Google is how many quality people link to your site. If you can increase the number of inbound links from reputable sites it will improve your ranking. 

More Time Spent on Page

If you have lots of text on a page, people will tend to skim it and then move on, often pretty quickly. Videos regularly get watched and that generally means people spend longer on a page. According to the research, nearly 2.6 times longer. Google likes visitors to hang around and time spent on a page does affect ranking. 

Why You Should Include a Transcript

If you want to boost your rankings, you need to include a transcript of your video on your web page. Why? It’s good for accessibility, for a start. Automatic closed captioning provides this but is often inaccurate. It’s always best to do your own and put this text in the description section when you load up the video to sites like YouTube. Make sure you include important keywords in your video and you should boost visibility with the transcript. 

Optimising for YouTube

Many businesses will load their video onto YouTube. It’s the most popular video sharing site with over 300 hours of content uploaded every minute. There are plenty of different ways to optimise your video on YouTube including making your description keyword effective so that consumers are able to find you. 

On your own website you should create a video site map that guides Google’s web crawlers by providing important details such as title, description and length. This gives Google the opportunity to make an informed ranking decision about your video and the content you are providing.

Video has the potential to play a big role getting your business noticed in online searches. If you’d like to find out more and discover how the team at Square Pixel Productions can help create great contact that has lots of impact, contact us today.