How Video Creation Supports Search Engine Optimization

Videos are the hot new marketing format, especially since the rise of TikTok. Nowadays, videos can be found everywhere, from posts on social media platforms to embeds in blog content to directly on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).

While most marketers are aware of video’s benefits, not everyone is aware that videos can significantly impact search engine optimization (SEO) results. With the right approach, you can turn videos into a multi-dimensional marketing tool that improves promotional outcomes from many different angles.

Let’s discuss how videos support SEO and why you should create videos for your business.

The Benefits of Videos for SEO

When most people think of SEO, they think about keywords and how to incorporate them into their on-site content. However, there are plenty of other factors that play into SEO, which videos can help you with.

Here are some of the ways videos help your search engine optimization efforts:

User engagement: If people watch the videos you’ve embedded on your website, they spend more time there. Increased dwell time is a positive signal to search engines and video platforms like YouTube, indicating to them that your content is valuable to web visitors. Since these platforms prioritize showing high-quality, authoritative, and trustworthy content to visitors, this can lead to better SEO results.
Click-through rates: Google has a dedicated video search tab that users can leverage to find videos related to their keyword. Additionally, depending on the keyword’s intent, the search engine will sometimes serve a dedicated video carousel directly on the usual SERP. If you embed video content into your website, you increase your chances of being discovered through these elements, increasing your click-through rates.
Prioritized content: Since search engines prioritize content that matches user intent, videos are highly featured on certain SERPs. “How-to,” review, and tutorial keywords are just a few examples of keywords for which Google serves video results. Videos provide engaging answers to these keywords, resulting in Google favoring them for these queries.
Better backlink generation: If your videos are visually appealing and contain useful information, other websites may feature them in their content to educate their viewers. They may embed these videos directly into their content or simply link to them as a reputable source. This results in more backlinks, which improves your site’s domain authority and SEO results.
Additional opportunities for metadata optimization: Videos allow optimization via metadata, structured data (also known as schema), and transcripts. These elements help search engines understand your video content and the rest of your on-page content better, leading to higher rankings and increased features in video carousels.

Videos also have other digital marketing benefits, namely increased visibility and reach. These types of media are more engaging than others, which means they’re more memorable. Having valuable video content on your channels leads to improved brand awareness and even more conversions—84% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.

Types of SEO-Friendly Videos

Here are a few types of videos businesses might make for SEO or digital marketing purposes:

Explainer videos discuss how a product or service works or explain an educational concept.
Product or product use case videos showcase a business’s specific product in depth.
Brand or company videos explain a company’s mission and vision, general services, and values.
Social media videos are generally short-form videos specifically made to condense information into an easily digestible format.
Promotional videos highlight a brand’s products and values to sell more to potential customers and employees.
Customer testimonials and case studies discuss how a business’s products or services helped a customer or organization.

As you can tell, videos are an extremely versatile media format that can be used in many different ways. To determine what type of video to create for your brand, consider your most immediate marketing goals and how videos can support those.

For example, if you’re an association trying to showcase your value to potential members, you would create a brand or company video or a promotional video. On the other hand, if you’re a business trying to gain consumer trust, a testimonial or case study video might be more impactful.

Short-Form Videos vs. Long-Form Videos

With the rise of short-form video-based social media platform TikTok, digital marketers have quickly started distinguishing videos in terms of their length. Although you might think that duration is the only thing that differentiates short-form and long-form videos, they actually have different implications for your marketing and SEO strategies.

Here’s a quick comparison between the two:

	Short-Form Videos	Long-Form Videos
Duration	15 seconds to 2 minutes	5 minutes or longer
User Intent	Increase awareness and brand recognition, or provide quick tips or eye-catching visuals	Provide detailed information, ideal for educational content, product demonstrations, or deep storytelling
Engagement	High engagement due to attention-grabbing nature and longer on-page dwell times that improve SEO rankings	Higher watch times, positively impacting SEO rankings
Distribution Channels	Social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, Facebook Stories, and LinkedIn	YouTube, Vimeo, websites, and learning platforms
SEO Value	Boosts SEO by increasing brand visibility and social shares through engagement on social media platforms. Can also appear on SERPs, be optimized for search with metadata like titles, descriptions, tags, and video schema.	Impacts SEO by appearing on SERPs and can be optimized for search with metadata like titles, descriptions, tags, and video schema
Best Use Cases	Product teasers, brand awareness, social media challenges, quick tips, behind-the-scenes clips, customer reviews	Detailed tutorials, educational courses, product testimonials, webinars, interviews, case studies

With attention spans shrinking, short-form videos are generally more appealing to web visitors, as they provide valuable information in a small package. However, that’s not to say that long-form videos have no place in your marketing strategy; if you want to provide in-depth information, they can do that much better than shorter videos.

Video SEO Best Practices

Whether you’re already creating video content for your brand or if you’re interested in getting started, follow these best practices to maximize your results:

Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions. To maximize the number of clicks on your video and ensure that people can find it through search engines, incorporate the keyword you’re targeting within the video’s title and description.
Add accurate transcripts and captions. For accessibility purposes, add transcripts and closed captions to videos so all users can understand them. They also help search engines crawl your video content and index it.
Implement video schema markup. Schema markup helps search engines recognize what on-page elements are. In the case of videos, your schema should include the video’s name, description, duration, upload date, and content URL.
Create compelling thumbnails and CTAs. Visually appealing thumbnails encourage viewers to click on your video and watch it, resulting in longer dwell times and better SEO results. Calls to action (CTA) that direct readers to watch your video are also helpful and ensure your video is viewed by plenty of web visitors.

Additionally, be mindful of which video platforms you host on. Many businesses default to YouTube for discoverability, though others prefer to use platforms like Vimeo. Regardless of which option you choose, once you make your video, embed it into your onsite content and other marketing content to maximize views and engagement.

How to Integrate Video Content into Your Overall SEO Strategy

When it comes to SEO, much of the focus is on blog content and web pages. This means you might not be familiar with integrating video content into your overall SEO strategy. Luckily, it’s not as complicated as it may seem.

When a business establishes its SEO strategy, its marketing team usually performs keyword research and determines which keywords to try to rank for. You simply have to align your videos with that keyword research.

For example, let’s say you’re a mobile pet grooming business. Through your keyword research, you identify that many people are searching, “What is a mobile pet grooming business?” Alongside drafting blog content, you can create short-form video content that addresses the same question! In the video, you can quickly explain the difference between mobile and traditional pet grooming businesses and go over the pros and cons of each. You might also create a supplemental promotional video about your specific services and encourage viewers to book a grooming session.

From there, you’d embed these videos into your on-site content (such as the blog content you just made or even your services page and homepage) and then cross-promote them through social media and email campaigns. Then, you’ll monitor your video process with analytics to refine your strategy and ensure that it’s delivering the SEO boost you desire.

Creating videos for your brand is difficult if your staff members lack experience in developing polished visual products that immediately grab attention. At Nexus Marketing, we offer services designed to unite video marketing and SEO to boost your reach. Our offerings include:

Video Production: We’ll create custom short-form videos that enrich your web and social media presence, create a professional impression and engage audiences, and support your sales, product, awareness, or event goals!
Repackaging Webinar Footage: Does your business already host webinars or educational livestreams? We can repackage the footage into bite-sized short-form videos that you can spread through social media and post on your website to boost your brand’s visibility and authority and generate more leads!
Lead Generation Campaign Packages: We’ll plan, promote, manage, and host custom webinars on your behalf. You bring us the idea for the webinar, and we’ll market it to your list and ours. Then we create a range of deliverables you can use as fresh lead capture, lead nurture, and sales enablement assets—including short-form videos!

Interested in working with us to create videos? Please reach out to explore how Nexus Marketing can assist you with your business’s marketing priorities.

Already a Nexus client or partner? Please send a message to your Nexus Points of contact—we’d love to discuss how we can help.