5 Reasons Why Video Content Marketing Is So Important for SEO

Video Content marketing is an essential component of both engaging your target audience, and bolstering brand awareness online. Even with all the technical aspects of SEO, there’s simply no denying that content is the lifeblood of both website and search engine optimisation.

Nowadays, one of the most effective methods of creating content that’s perfect for achieving your SEO goals is video marketing. Over the past decade, the production of video content has been recognised as a highly valuable component of developing dynamic SEO marketing strategies. Video content can also provide additional benefits alongside boosting SEO rankings, including supporting the promotion of a business’ products and services across both websites and social media profiles, as well as potentially increasing sales as a result.

But why exactly does video content have such a powerful impact over SEO? This is just the question we’ll be unpacking below. Keep reading to unearth all the benefits and advantages of video marketing.

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#1 More people watch videos

Let’s start with the simplest truth: people love watching videos online. This fact can be proven in a myriad of ways, including taking the time to assess your own screen time stats on your phone. We’d prefer to explore the comparatively higher engagement of video content over written content as represented in many industry surveys and research papers. For instance, in 2022, the global average time of watching online videos was 19 hours per week. This is almost twice as much as in 2018. And these trends of web users engaging higher with video content is only likely to grow further from here with the growing popularity of video-based social media platforms like TikTok.

Moving back to video content on websites, however, additional studies have shown that videos drive more traffic than any other type of on-site content. Researchers at Cisco estimated in 2020 that more than 82% of consumer internet traffic in 2022 will be made up of users engaging with video content. With this in mind, by posting video content on your website you can not only reach a new audience but also drastically increase your site’s traffic.

And more traffic means better rankings on search engines, creating a positive ripple effect where your website can build more popularity alongside authority. This is the sweet spot that all SEO professionals seek to find.

#2 Videos can help boost brand and product awareness

People are more likely to watch a video to learn about a certain product or service rather than reading ‘the fine print’ or lengthy product descriptions. Showcasing your services or products in video format can also provide prospective customers with a more dynamic sneak peek into your company’s offerings. Seeing the way a product works in a video can provide far more information and insights than seeing photographs.

Thus, by creating video content for your business that clearly outlines the primary selling points of your brand or product, you’ll naturally have a greater chance of attracting more potential customers and bolstering their knowledge of your services or offerings.

#3 Pages with video content can rank higher on SERPs

With the increased likelihood of user engagement, it’s no surprise that video content can have a direct impact on your SEO rankings. What you may not know, however, is that video content can be a lot more of an advantage for companies looking to rank highly on Google SERPs in particular. Why? Because Google’s search algorithm has been designed to prioritize pages that contain videos alongside high value content, such as content that provides answers to commonly asked search queries as featured in Google’s snippets.

You might have noticed that no matter what you’re searching for, several related videos appear right at the top of Google’s page 1 results nowadays. It works this way because search engines know that people prefer getting their answers from video content over written content, and consider video content more likely to be helpful to Google users. This information has prompted Google engineers to include more short form video content that provide users with concise answers on their SERPs.

#4 Video content can attract more backlinks

Backlinks are perhaps one of the most important ranking factors for Google’s algorithm, specifically because a strong backlink profile is effectively a surefire sign of a site being a high authority. When other websites, especially other high authority ones, link their pages back to your website, it signals to search engine algorithms that your content is credible, helpful, and worth their users’ attention.

In this regard, videos with high-value content can actually raise your chances of getting more natural backlinks. More bloggers, writers, and content creators will see your video as a reputable link to add to their own content. And the more sites link to your video, the higher your site’s own authority will grow, and the more likely it will be for your content to rank highly on SERPs. It’s that positive ripple effect back in action, and it all starts with some video content strategising!

#5 Video marketing historically has provided a strong ROI

And if all these reasons weren’t enough to persuade you already, let’s discuss the fact that video content marketing is positioned to provide digital marketing specialists and their clients alike with a strong ROI, or return on their investment. How do we know this? Again, the numbers speak for themselves. In 2021, 87% of digital marketers said that video content marketing provided a strong return on their investment. This figure was a dramatic increase in findings from a similar 2015 study into video marketing conducted by Wyzowl.

What made video marketing even more attractive in the last few years is that creating quality videos became more affordable and accessible. Nowadays, it’s simply not necessary to hire a videography professional, as everyone can easily learn and practice the basics of video editing right from their phones, from how to trim a video to how to make picture in picture video and learn news tools in a matter of minutes.

The influx of video editing software with highly streamlined, easy-to-master user interfaces also gave virtually all marketing specialists and small business owners alike the opportunity to make their own, beautiful promotional videos totally in-house.

What to consider when producing video content for SEO

With the five reasons we’ve outlined above, you now know the impact and importance of video marketing with regards to SEO. But knowing these benefits is only half the equation. Producing high-value video content will naturally involve engaging with your audience preferences, current market trends, and of course, optimising your videos to ensure that they can easily be found by both search engines and their users.

Here are three key facts to keep in mind that will help you produce perfect videos for appeasing Google:

1. Short videos are preferable – After TikTok gained popularity, people started to prefer short-form videos over longer videos. According to HubSpot research, 52% of people are likely to watch videos that are less than 60 seconds or about 1-3 minutes. As other platforms have introduced their own short-form video sharing capabilities (i.e. YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels), it’s clear that the 1-minute video format remains extremely popular.

2. Most people watch video content on YouTube – YouTube has more than 2.6 billion active users every month, so it’s not surprising that most marketers choose this particular video sharing platform as an effective marketing channel. As a Google service, posting videos on YouTube not only gives your brand the opportunity to reach a wider audience, but may also boost your chances of ranking higher on Google SERPs. Check out this blog on how to get more views on YouTube shorts for more ideas on growing your video marketing.

3. Making your videos mobile-friendly is a must – About 90% of people watch video content on their mobile phones out of sheer convenience. So it’s critical to take this fact into account when creating a video for your business. Try to make your videos as mobile-friendly and universally accessible as possible. For example, you should add subtitles to your videos, as many users may be inclined to watch videos on mute in public settings or on public transport.

To sum up

The growing interest in video content for consumers isn’t likely to lose its momentum anytime soon. As a result, creating video content and developing video content marketing strategies can provide a myriad of advantages to your business or client, both with regards to building organic traffic alongside supporting the growth of your SEO rankings.

However, to achieve great results, it is critical to be consistent and create only high-quality content that will be sure to give you a leg up on your competitors. Prioritise value wherever possible, and ensure that the video content you create perfectly complements the written content on your website. In doing so, you’ll undoubtedly find that your video marketing efforts will provide both results and a strong ROI to boot.