Video Content To Boost You Up Google’s Search Results
One of the great things about Google is that for any given search, it returns what we call a Universal (or blended) list of results. That is, in addition to just supplying visitors with basic results (such as websites that match your term) Google also gives you YouTube results, image results, news headlines, and even maps.
It’s a lot of information, and since Google started giving Universal results, video is 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of results for any given search (bumping other text-heavy returns down to the second page). Additionally, the results page will show a frame of the video, embedding the image in the page, which draws the eye.
Say, for instance, you go to Google to find out how to tie a tie.
Sure, you may notice that first return on this search is www.tie-a-tie.net, but the thing that grabs the attention of most people browsing the web are images, and Google (seeing as they own YouTube) tends to place YouTube links, with images, as some of the top returns. This is even more true for search results that are posed as a question.
So how do you make the most of video – to grow and promote your organization?
1. Create quality video. This means succinct, to the point snippets of video that tell your story in an interesting way.
2. Upload your video to YouTube. Eight out of ten video results in a Google search are YouTube videos. It is by far the leading domain for video hosting. Creating an account is free and easy to do, and you can even create your own channel where viewers can subscribe to receive your videos via email.
3. Embed your video on your website. After uploading it to YouTube, you can easily grab the code to insert your video into your site and allow visitors to view it. Even if they never click over to YouTube, every view will be tracked on YouTube’s counter, telling you the exact number of times your video has been seen.
4. Share a link to your website (specifically the page where the video is embedded) on your social media channels.
The most challenging step is all of this is the first one – deciding what you want to say and creating quality video to say it. Considering that questions typed into Google tend to turn up videos the most frequently, think about what questions your customers or clients might want answered. For instance, a career counselor might want to create a video titled “How to find your next great job.” A new city manager might wonder “How do I build trust with my city council?”
There isn’t much that can’t be well communicated with video, and embracing this medium will also help boost you to the top of Google search results, bringing visitors to your site and promoting the growth of your business.