Video is one of the most important components for your marketing. It has several powerful characteristics that make it a great storytelling medium. When the web was born back in the early 90s, many thought video was doomed. Little did we know that the combination of video and the web today would make a potent 1-2 punch that nothing else can match.
Recently, I wrote a blog article for the Huffington Post titled 7 Reasons To Use Video in 2014. The key points noted are all important for marketers. However, I failed to realize I was missing something that marketers really need to know. When a video is produced and shared, it has many benefits. What we tend to forget is that SEO and quality score are also impacted by video, positively and negatively. This is what I call the secret sauce in getting videos recognized and ranked on search engines.
SEO and Quality Score
This is an area that I read and study a lot, mostly because I am not fully equipped in my ability to leverage video as it relates to SEO and quality score.
In order to provide the "secret sauce" I alluded to in the title, I needed to talk to someone who does it everyday as a professional. Peter Larkin is an Internet Sales Manager for YP. After having a brief conversation with Peter, I then asked him three very specific questions. He made me aware that video now is factored into search algorithms differently than it was before. Hmm. As I thought about this, I realized that video could quite possibly be one of the most powerful factors in a brand's marketing mix when combined with the web. I knew this subconsciously, but I needed some extra professional brainpower to convince myself.
The three questions in this article are designed to educate all of us about how video is not just a passive, linear medium as it once was labeled. When combined with the web, video does have a few hidden secrets marketers may not know.
How Does Video Positively Impact Quality Score?
The bottom line is, online video positively affects quality score when tagged properly and contains hyper-local relative content. Online video increases quality score best when tagged with relative keyword phrases and geographic modifier. Each website and each keyword phrase has a quality score based on relevancy with the spiders across all search engines. Each website receives a quality score for overall relevancy for its vertical and category. Even more important is the quality score per each keyword phrase and specific geographic modifier. The end result is a higher organic ranking, per query and a lower CPC (cost per click) for related keyword queries.
What Can A Marketer Do With Their Video To Improve SEO Rankings and Visibility?
Tag the video, similar to meta-tags for a website with relevant keywords and phrases and hyper local geo-modifiers. Search engine spiders look for similar keywords and phrases from a query, URL's and all the mysterious factors in algorithms. None of us will ever completely know all factors in the ever-changing algorithms. One thing we do know is online video, when tagged properly offers engaging relevant content that is valued higher today than yesterday. Online video is also trending to be more and more of a factor to increase quality score.
Which Is Better For SEO Purposes - The Quality Of The Video Or The Quantity Of Videos That Are Searchable?
Quality is always better than quantity. With that said, informative, entertaining and engaging video 30-seconds to 60-seconds works best in our immediate gratification society. Budget permitting, I recommend spreading out your dollars to have multiple relative videos versus one or two videos that are 10 minutes long. Go with quality, short, relevant, engaging videos and do a lot of them.
Thanks to Peter Larkin and YP, marketers now have a more holistic perspective as to how they can leverage video in the web world. It's not just about production quality, creativity and message content. Of course that's very helpful. However, what good is that if your prospective customers can't find your brand on the web? If I were to survey a million sales and marketing pros, I would say nearly 100 percent would say, "It's no good at all." Now with a little insight from YP, we have some helpful tips to use in combination with all the other strengths of video. Drink-up video's secret sauce. Your sales and marketing team and your analytics will tell you: It tastes great!