Google first acquired video giant YouTube on November 13th, 2006. If it wasn’t one before, video became an essential part of any digital strategy at this point in video marketing history. Where we once marketed cigarettes, milk, and butter through five to ten minutes of visual media (circa 1920), we can now market something as monumental as a luxury timeshare in as little as five seconds.
The power of video has now outright dominated as a marketing tool for going on a century, and shows no sign of losing steam anytime soon, but video also offers advantages beyond sales enablement. It’s no secret that a properly optimized video can reach an audience all on its own, but did you know that hosting videos and linking them to your company’s web presence can actually help index your company with Google and other search engines?
DOUBLING YOUR ODDS
As early as 2009, Forrester was able to measure the impacts of video on webpage search ranking. Content Marketer Shawn Forno of Shareaholic derived from that report that pages with video were 53% more likely to be listed on page one of the Google search results. That means you are more than doubling your likelihood of being found in the first 15-20 results by hosting video on your page.
In addition, video provides a strong backlink to your page and your domain when shared. Embedding a hosted video on social media or any other website, whether viewed or not, creates a network that builds trust with Google. The more videos you host and embed, the more backlinks you create; the more backlinks you create, the stronger the trust, and the better your ranking becomes.
PAGE ACTIVITY
Page stay duration and page activity are two more metrics that improve your Google search ranking, both of which are directly impacted by video. We don’t even have to go looking for statistics, here; we have our own!
The Render Perfect Newsletter is delivered between one and three times a month, depending on the month. This gives us up to three chances each month to measure the effects of video on user clicks. Typically our newsletters contain several clickable images; yet, over a period of 8 months in 2015, we saw a steady rise of 24% in clicks due to one thing, and one thing only…the addition of a play button. Embedding (or in our case, linking) a playable video magnetized the clicks of our audience, and it is guaranteed to do the same for yours. In addition to clicks, the implementation of video content extends the page stay of visitors who may want additional information, another metric that builds trust with Google.
BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
All of these video enhancements do not go unnoticed by Google. Although only Google execs know exactly what Google’s algorithm is, we do know that each and every metric- from number of clicks to length of stay on a page- will be tallied and used to calculate the ranking of that page. The wider and more attentive your audience is in relation to your content, the better your rank will be.
In addition, if more than one page has a high ranking, than the ranking of your web domain begins to grow, as well. The better your average page ranking, the better your domain ranking. Imagine if every page on your website had searchable, “rank-able” video to boost that overall number. The difference would be astronomical.
If you need help putting together strong video content to rank your pages and your domain higher, we’re here to help! Call our office at 410.853.7892 or send us an email via info@myrender.com, and let us help you get started on video marketing today!
604 E Joppa Road