The most effective sales and marketing strategies use the right tools of the trade. Video, SEO, social media, email – they all have their time and place in the marketer’s toolbox. In fact, the organizations that really have the sale funnel down to a science are the ones that understand how those different tools work with each other to form a cohesive marketing powerhouse.
In the case of video, we already know it’s the ideal format for storytelling, making it a potent solution for influencing buyer behavior. But did you know video also propels other critical areas of your marketing efforts like search engine optimization? While also expanding your reach? I’ll explain.
Before I dive in, I want to throw out a quick caveat. You might have read elsewhere that video is a natural, plug-and-play SEO driver. However, the truth of the matter is a bit more complicated than that. Although video marketing can absolutely play a role in improving your search rankings and organic traffic, it’s usually in a more indirect way than many people state.
In other words, you can’t just plop a video into a webpage and expect to see a massive overnight surge in traffic. In reality, video drives SERP (search engine results pages) performance through technical SEO tactics, allowing Google’s site crawlers to identify your pages as potentially valuable to the end-user.
Now, I understand that reading the term technical SEO might make some people want to run in the opposite direction. But for every somewhat complex component of SEO like structured data, schema markup, and keyword research, there are plenty of others that are straightforward and easy to implement. Even better, many of these tactics pair extremely well with video content.
This is the most significant way video and SEO can work in conjunction with each other. Rather than embedding a video on an empty page – remember, Google can’t crawl the contents of a video – use accompanying text to give the search crawlers something to sink their teeth into. Besides the obvious like catchy video titles, thumbnails, and metadata, you can also:
Any of these choices allow Google to find keywords, understand your content better, and begin indexing the page. If you take an organized approach that integrates relevant keywords and information, the combination of video and written content can be a powerful organic traffic driver.
Going a step further, a person either watching a video or reading supporting text will also improve your time-on-page metrics. Similarly, linking to other pieces of your content that support key ideas and concepts in your video and supporting text will drive your pages-per-session. Together, these are all ranking factors that can improve your search performance and help your target audience find you.
Of course, video content isn’t just for web pages. As a matter of fact, one of the most significant benefits of using video is the ability to cut it into snippets and repurpose the content across your digital footprint.
For example, we know that roughly 30 seconds is the ideal length for an Instagram video. Therefore, rather than trying to wedge a longer piece of content into your feed and jeopardize engagement levels, you can cut that content into bite-size morsels and distribute them in your social media channels, email campaigns, or newsletters.
Tying into my previous point, you can also share a blog post or transcription based on the content through those same channels. Ultimately, this approach allows you to repurpose a single piece of video content in multiple ways, greatly expanding your reach with little additional effort or time.
Obviously, using the right video solution to start with makes the entire process faster, easier, and more efficient. But that’s why OneDay exists – to give you the video tools and insights you need to maximize the impact of your entire marketing strategy.