Videos are one of the most useful tools in your marketing toolbox. Learn the benefits of video marketing and how to get the most out of your video content.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine what a video is worth!
We’ve always said that content is king when it comes to digital marketing and search engine rankings, and video is one of the most versatile and popular kinds of content.
Internet users (and search engines) love videos. In fact, 54% of people actually want to see more video content from marketers, and this trend is expected to continue.
Videos and video marketing are an incredibly important tool in your digital marketing toolbox. Read on to learn the benefits of video marketing and find out how to make the most of your video content.
Benefits of Video Marketing
Internet users love videos – especially videos that are well done and great at answering questions about your products or services. But, videos have other benefits that you might not have considered.
Videos Improve Search Engine Rankings
One of the many ranking factors that Google considers in their algorithm is “dwell time”. This is the amount of time that visitors spend on your website after clicking through from the search results. The thought is that if a visitor spends a lot of time on a site, it must have great content, and therefore it should be ranked higher.
The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video, so embedding videos can significantly boost your page’s dwell time and improve your search engine rankings.
Videos Increase Search Engine Visibility
Not only can video help your rankings, but they also improve your visibility with the search engines by giving them yet another opportunity to display your content on the first page of the search results.
With the advanced video analysis functionality and enhanced video recommendations from the Google MUM update, videos are becoming increasingly important.
Depending on the search query, Google will often display a separate section just for videos. Sometimes, the video section appears at the top of the search results page, and sometimes it appears a little lower on the page. Regardless, having a relevant video that addresses the search query gives Google yet another opportunity to put your content on the first page.
Videos Educate and Entertain Your Visitors
Videos are a powerful way to communicate your brand story and explain and reinforce your value proposition. They provide the perfect platform for talking about your business and explaining what you do.
Video content is particularly useful when it comes to explaining complex products and services because they allow you to use imagery to provide additional clarity.
Videos are Versatile
Once a video has been created, there are loads of opportunities to make use of the new content. You can embed it on your site, upload it to YouTube and Vimeo, post it on social media, and use it in your other marketing efforts. The sky is the limit!
How to Get the Most out of Your Videos
Publish on YouTube
YouTube reaches more 18- to 49-year-olds in an average week than all cable TB networks combined. If you have a video, publishing it to YouTube is a must.
When publishing your video, keep the following in mind:
YouTube Titles
- Try to keep it within 70 characters, which is the number of characters displayed on a YouTube search page.
- Use a compelling title that describes what the user will find in the video.
- Incorporate keywords where possible.
- Use “How to…” and numbers if appropriate, as these tend to convert better.
YouTube Descriptions
- Pay close attention to the first three lines as these are what viewers see before the “See more” button.
- Use keywords in your description to help searchers find your video.
- Incorporate links to pages on your site where they can find more information. This is also a great place to link to your social media profiles.
- If your video is long, include timestamps when talking about relevant subjects.
Publish to Vimeo
While Vimeo doesn’t have the exposure that YouTube does, there is a very compelling reason to publish your videos to Vimeo.
Google made a change to their YouTube policy that allows them to show ads on all videos, even if their creators don’t want them. Members of the YouTube Channel Partner program have the option of turning off monetization, but the qualifications are prohibitive for many users. To qualify, you need to be in good standing with YouTube, have 4,000 valid public watch hours in the previous 12 months, and have at least 1,000 subscribers.
This means that if you embed your YouTube videos on your site, there is a chance that competitor ads will appear on your video.
To get around this issue, we recommend that you also publish your video to Vimeo and embed the Vimeo video on your site instead.
Embed on Your Site
According to HubSpot, including video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80%! As we discussed earlier, videos can also improve dwell time, which can go a long way towards improving your rankings.
If possible, upload your video to Vimeo first so that competitor ads won’t show. It is also a good idea to publish it above the fold so that visitors are more likely to see it.
From there, you can embed relevant videos on your service pages or even create a whole new page just for videos!
Create a Transcript and Write a Blog Post
Some videos make great blog posts, but blog posts should be more than just an embedded video. In these situations, you can either write several paragraphs of text or get a transcript of the video and use that as the content.
With tools like Otter, you can upload a video and it will auto-magically create a transcription of the voice audio. The transcript will still require editing, but it is a lot faster than transcribing it yourself.
When creating and publishing your blog post, be sure to follow the guide in the Essential Blog Post Checklist for SEO.
Share on Social
Facebook generates 8 billion video views on average per day, so publishing your videos on Facebook is a great way to get more out of your video content.
When publishing to Facebook, we recommend uploading it directly to Facebook, instead of just posting a YouTube or Vimeo link. Native videos perform much better and appear in the Videos tab of your Facebook page.
Depending on your business and audience, you can also share your videos on Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, and even Pinterest!
Include in Your Email Marketing Campaigns
Videos can add serious oomph to your email campaigns. Simply adding “Video” to the title can improve opens and encourage your audience to read more.
Just to be clear, we aren’t suggesting that you attach a video to your emails. Rather, just create a video thumbnail that has a play button on it and link that to the video. Thumbnails like this can get much higher click-through rates than regular text links, so definitely consider adding videos to your email campaigns.
Need Help with Your Video Marketing?
55% of people watch videos every day…It is time to make some of those videos yours!
Whether you already have videos you wish to promote or are interested in having videos created, New Plains Media has you covered with end-to-end video marketing services.
Contact us at grow@pioneermedia.me today!
