Video Content Improves Search Engine Rankings

Written by Jean Steckler
Steckler eMarketing, Westfield NJ 07090

Google’s most recent update places a higher emphasis on video content.  The Panda update on September 28, 2011 is making video necessary for high search engine rankings.

To this point, consider a video content study by Forrester Research, a leading online marketing firm. Forrester Research found that videos are 53 times more likely than traditional web pages to achieve an organic first page rank in Google.  After analyzing the keywords that return video content in blended Google searches, Forrester Research found an average of 16,000 videos competing for an average 1.5 first page results.  This means each video has an approximate 11,000 to 1 chance of ranking on the first page.  Searches for the same keywords rendered 4.7 million traditional text pages in competition over an average 9.4 first page text results – a 500,000 to 1 chance.

This means that there is significantly less competition for high ranking video content, and thus first page search results, than traditional text documents.  And not only is the competition less, it is weaker.  Most of the video content on the web is poorly optimized, tagged and referenced.  Google is unable to appropriately register its content with search terms, and the well optimized videos shoot to the top. 

In order to demonstrate the value of video content on a website, I conducted four searches, each with randomly selected keywords: “baseball pitch,” “pizza pie,” “video content SEO,” and “starfish.”  These are the results:

• Four of the top ten search results for “baseball pitch” in Google have video content; two are YouTube videos.  
• Five of the top ten search results for “pizza pie” in Google have video content; three are YouTube videos. 
• Eight of the top ten search results for “video content SEO” have video content; two are YouTube videos.
• Five of the top ten search results for “starfish” have video content; one is a YouTube video.

Site owners don’t even need actual video footage to take advantage of the SEO advantages of video content.  Websites can include screen captures, slide shows or even Power Point presentations and, by creating a video sitemap, reap the benefits of a fully optimized video. 

Hopefully, the point is clear: companies striving to increase their organic search engine ranks should include video content on their websites.  A few rules to remember:

1. Optimize the video content for keywords in the file names of the video, the captions and annotations of the video content, and the title, description and tags of YouTube embedded video content. 
2. Include Video Libraries (Video and XML sitemaps) so that Google’s crawlers know where to find video content on the website and are able to register its content. 
3. Include a transcription of the video content in the HTML so that Google’s crawlers can note the keyword relevancy of the content.
4. Keep the video interesting for the end user.  Include punchy, catchy titles to draw views and keep video content short and to the point.  Nobody has the time to watch a twenty minute video.  Three to five minutes is ideal; no more than ten.

Written by Charles Benisch
Benisch eMarketing
http://www.benisch-emarketing.com
charles@benisch-emarketing.com