What can videos do to help you with your SEO strategy?

Everybody is talking about the creation of marketing and promotional videos these days. The benefits for marketing are evident that videos spread quickly and generate interest through social media, and remain able to draw the attention of our constant stream of information.

Can videos also be a part of the effectiveness of your SEO strategy?

We don't have all the details about Google's ranking signals; therefore, it's impossible to know for certain whether there's a direct cause in the equation. The question is whether Google "likes" pages with videos more than pages with no videos remains a mystery.

But there are also SEO benefits in an indirect form that are at play here:

1. SERP real estate

Videos take up a significant amount of space on Google's search result pages both on desktop and mobile. Google utilizes the so-called " video carousels" to display videos that are related to a wide range of search terms.

In reality, on a mobile device, the video carousel occupies all the screen space, and for the majority of search terms, it can take quite a while to scroll through:

As per Mozcast Mozcast, video carousels are featured for the third of all search queries. That is plenty of SEO opportunities to be a major player in your search results!

If you have your video branded carefully and optimize your YouTube video page, One of these videos on a carousel can bring back your potential customer to the brand name and increase the chances of conversion.

2. Rich snippets

A video-rich snippet (VRS) is an enhanced search snippet which includes a video thumbnail in addition to the link. It's a great method to enhance your search video snippet stand out.

Video-rich snippets are extremely easy to access.

Contrary to video carousels, rich snippets of content send visitors to your website, as opposed to that of the video on YouTube. For this reason, it is easier to:

The best scenario is to capture both: A full-length video snippet that appears on Page 1 of the organic search results and your video within the video carousel on the same page.

This can help you create greater brand awareness by creating the thumbnail of a video and creating both clicks and views.

To increase the odds of obtaining a rich video clip, you must:

1. Embed a video on your website. It doesn't have to be your own video, but keep in keep in mind that Google will display your channel's name underneath your snippet on the desktops, which is why it's sensible to make use of your channel's name.

2. Use video schema. Here's a great tool for creating video schemas to help you do this. There are many plugins which make this task much easier.

For rich desktop video short snippets, keep in mind that they will also draw the date you uploaded your video, so ensure you upload your videos is up-to-date to prevent your snippet from becoming outdated.

If you embed a video on your site, be sure to check your page's load speed. Surprisingly, Youtube videos have a negative impact on the performance of your page when embedded, even if they aren't. Youtube is part of Google (so webmasters usually assume that the site is optimized to work with Google as a default).

To illustrate the impact To show the effect, here's my page's score without a YouTube video embedded:

You can overcome this by applying the trick that I have described that worked in my situation above.

One of the surprising advantages of this approach was how related videos Youtube will show at the conclusion of every video after you upload it. Following the steps in the tutorial, I saw those related videos were gone, and my own video was shown instead.

Last but not least, remember to check the Google Search Console to find out how your rich video shorts are performing.

Under Your "Performance" section, create the new search filter "Search Appearance: Videos" to determine which search terms trigger rich snippets of content for your website and track your CTR for those searches.

3. On-page engagement

There's no proof that Google employs on-page interaction as an indication of rank. Actually, I think they have denied that they use such a signal.

Yet, getting users to stop and take action on a webpage is a great way to gain marketing benefits, which are usually the basis of any SEO strategy. They include:

• Greater chance of conversion
• Chances of them not bouncing or returning to the search results (which could or might not be a ranking signal)

Videos are great engagement boosts, so if you think your site is not getting any sort of action, consider embedding the video. Be sure to keep in mind your main web-related essentials while doing so.

4. Referral traffic

Similar to on-page interactions; however, referral traffic has not been verified as an actual SEO signal. We are aware that Google loves when a link is clicked, but we don't know if a website with zero referral traffic coming from external sources is less trustworthy in the eyes of Google as compared to a page that has good quality referral traffic.

However, referral traffic can increase the likelihood of a site gaining links and shares. It is also beneficial, regardless of whether it's being generated by a natural search or another website.

YouTube doesn't provide a way to create referral traffic through your videos. You can include a clickable link displayed in the description of your video, but it is seldom read or even seen (especially on mobile devices).

It is also possible to link and build direct traffic on Youtube by putting your domain's name within the video's intro and outro. This article will show you how to create a captivating YouTube intro and outro.

Yet, you will find your video interesting and/or interesting enough to type in your domain's name into the address bar following having seen it in the opening.

This being said, Youtube does send traffic to a website, but only if you're producing amazing videos. Then, you can use explicit CTAs in the video to encourage users to click from the description of the video or directly types of inputs.