Stumbling on Your SEO Efforts? Try Some Video Magic.

Video entertains. It entices, it educates and it’s becoming an expected aspect of internet search culture.

Really, it’s a no-brainer to start folding video into your SEO marketing mix. Doing so can increase organic search traffic, improve backlinks, lengthen time spent on page, and improve click-through rates. Here are some examples:

• Organic search traffic: At Lemonlight, we’ve run some tests that show adding a video to a page can increase organic traffic from 10% to up to 250%. Videos give your blog and website pages a boost, increasing the likelihood that you’ll rank for relevant keywords.
• Backlinks: By creating a larger library of content spread over different platforms (think YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram Reels, etc.), you’ll have more chances to build a web of backlinks that support each other — and there will be more opportunities for users to share or link to your content as well.
• Session duration: Because around 70% of users prefer video content over written content, videos are more likely to keep users engaged with a page for a longer period of time. One test says videos can result in visitors staying on a page 2.6 times longer.
• Click-through rates: Google began adding video thumbnails next to about one-quarter of search results. Guess what? Those video-rich results are more likely to convert than those without video.

With all these benefits, video could become one of your most important marketing tools. Here are a few best practices to consider as you start producing and showcasing a repository of one-of-a-kind videos to enhance your SEO strategy.

Refresh Existing Pages With a Video Component

Maybe you have a blog post that used to drive eyes but has dropped off in the rankings for certain keywords. Or perhaps a page on your site has waned in viewership but remains relevant. Placing a video pertinent to the topic on either of those pages could revitalise their rankings. You could certainly see an appreciable improvement in click-throughs; after all, videos have been linked to a 157% improvement in organic results.

House Your Videos on a YouTube Channel

As the world’s second-biggest search engine, YouTube practically begs to host your videos. Additionally, unlike other video portals, you don’t have to pay a cent to have a YouTube channel. However, you do have to make sure that you fill out all the meta tags and descriptions with appropriate keywords.

Be sure to properly assign keywords to your channel, too. YouTube treats channel keywords differently than other types of keywords. Your channel keywords help YouTube understand the type of video content you offer to viewers. That way, YouTube can target your videos to key audiences more directly.

Tell Your Viewers What To Do

Let’s say you focus your attention on crafting a stellar video. In order to be effective, your video should have a call to action. A strong CTA tells viewers what to do next. For example, you might produce a how-to video featuring your latest product. At the end of the video, you could encourage viewers to buy the product using a special coupon code, leave a review, sign up for email alerts, or take another strategic action.

Just make sure that your CTA is direct, clear, and — most importantly for your SEO marketing efforts — measurable. Experiment with everything from video overlay copy to a spoken CTA recommendation to see which CTA works best. If possible, try to personalise the CTA to the viewer: HubSpot has concluded that customised CTAs boost organic conversions by more than 200%.

Create Beyond the Keyword

Your video will revolve around a specific keyword or keywords, but it should be enjoyable to watch — not just technically sufficient. Resist the temptation to construct a video script that’s meant more for algorithms than audiences. You might even want to conduct some video beta testing with users to ensure you’ve written something compelling and sticky.

This will require a bit of creative tightrope walking, to be sure. Nonetheless, professional SEO writers regularly show it’s possible to create content for all stakeholders — including the bot kind.

Take Advantage of Transcripts

Have you noticed that some blog articles or web pages that feature videos will include a full transcript at the end of the post? This is done for two main reasons. First, some people are multitaskers by nature and appreciate being able to scan content even when a video’s playing.

Secondly, if you’ve written a keyword-rich (but enjoyable) script, your keywords will show up all over the transcript. Consequently, you get a double SEO whammy of increased traction for specific keywords. Just make sure your transcript isn’t overstuffed. Keep the keyword optimisation levels reasonable, like you would for any kind of text content.

Video has been growing increasingly important in driving organic SEO traffic, so now is the time to start using it. Use keyword-oriented videos to engage audiences, refresh older content, and increase traffic to your content. Down the road, you’ll be glad you started building the video content web now.

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