Videos have become a driving force behind people utilize the Internet. Somewhere around 53% of all Internet bandwidth is used to stream videos, primarily on YouTube. This amounts to about 25 exabytes (26 million terabytes), and this number is expected to triple by 2014.
This trend has occurred for a variety of reasons, from increasing bandwidth speeds to the emergence of services like YouTube and Netflix, but failing to mention Google’s influence on how many videos are uploaded every day would be a huge mistake. Since Google purchased YouTube in 2006, they have had a vested interest in increasing the amount of video traffic that the search engines provide.
In practical terms, they’ve done this by increasing the value of on-page SEO for video content, utilizing metrics that increase a page’s rank in Google for posting videos that are widely watched. Pages that feature video interviews, video tutorials, product reviews, and even video advertisements will see an organic SEO bump simply from featuring videos from time to time.
At the same time, Google is constantly redesigning their search engine index page to more prominently feature videos. Just a year ago, they were still hidden in the “Videos” tab at the top of the search engine. Now, they display along with the rest of the search engine results, often at the very top. If you can’t beat your competition by getting your content ranked higher than theirs, you’ve got a real shot of getting your videos ranked higher than their content.
To immediately increase your SEO results from videos, try this. Start an ongoing weekly or monthly blog schedule where you post a series of videos. Starting a video series takes nothing more than an idea and a webcam; hosting, linking, and sharing the videos is completely free. Posting a series has another benefit: it encourages people to watch the other videos in the series. The types of videos you post will depend on your own marketing strategy, but focus on adding value to your site’s visitors. The more visitors you get to the pages with videos, the more you’ll start seeing your site-wide organic traffic rise.
Image – © HaywireMedia – Fotolia.com
I'm the Director of Digital Services and Partner at Ballantine, a family-owned and operated direct mail & digital marketing company based in New Jersey. and started in 1966 by my great uncle!
