4th August 2022 | Digital Marketing
Can Videos Improve Your Website Engagement?
Businesses are presenting information to online audiences in various ways. Google continuously promotes user-friendly mediums by allowing content to appear in search results in multiple formats. Video content is increasingly popular on websites and across all marketing channels. More and more companies are taking advantage of video, and it is fast becoming a fundamental ingredient for a successful digital marketing strategy.
Videos can be used to share information about brands, products, services, reviews, how-to guides, and so much more. The use of visual media is increasing, and when considering the future of digital marketing, there is no doubt it will be front and centre. It is estimated that 92.6% of internet users worldwide consume video content each week.
Why Should You Use Videos on Your Website?
When it comes to developing website content to be more engaging and informative, videos should be at the top of the list for several reasons:
1. Videos Increase the Time Visitors Stay on a Page
Videos increase the time visitors spend on your website. If a person lands on a webpage but leaves quickly, it can be seen as a quick exit, suggesting poor content to search engines. The more time a visitor spends on a webpage signals to search engines that the page contains engaging and helpful content. This helps with your website’s SEO optimisation and the chance of converting that visitor into a customer or client.
2. Videos are Easily Shareable
Embedding the video on your page keeps the content highly shareable. Users can access and share the original video when content is uploaded to a video-sharing website such as YouTube or Vimeo. Using a third-party platform means the video isn’t hosted on the website and prevents the page from being resource-heavy and slowing it down. Slow loading pages will be frustrating to a visitor and reduce engagement.
Also, as well as videos being able to be shared across social media platforms, Google can also index the video in search results from the third-party hosting platform as well as the webpage it is hosted on within your website. Hence, the video can be indexed twice.
3. Videos Improve Conversion Rates
Research has shown that users are two times as likely to purchase a product after viewing content such as a video review or demonstration compared to text or images alone.
4. Video Content is Perfect for B2B
Many B2B companies use videos to generate website traffic as part of a B2B marketing strategy. Selling a service can be harder than selling a product online. Video format provides you with the opportunity to share more information about a service and who you are, all in a succinct and digestible way compared to text. When it comes to building trust, a video can be a powerful tool.
5. Online Video Go Hand-in-Hand with Increased Mobile Use
Mobile devices offer convenience and information at your fingertips. It’s no surprise that mobile use has been on the up for years with no signs of slowing down. A mobile phone screen simply can’t show the same amount of text or images that a desktop can. This is why responsive web design has developed in the way that it has, providing different but equivalent user experiences across device types. Videos bridge this gap by offering the same high-quality experience regardless of device.
How to Get Started with Videos on Your Website
1. Create Video Content
The starting point of any video is content creation. Develop an understanding of what you want the video to convey. Think about the tone, length and film quality. Consider using a professional videographer to make this first step easier with professional results that match your brand. Videos are a great ranking factor for SEO, consider creating relevant videos to enhance key product pages or services pages for a boost to your organic reach. Or, to help boost conversion rates and trust, consider using video for testimonials, case studies or on your key business information pages. Whatever you decide, make sure you have a clear aim and stick with it.
2. Host the Video
You have many options for video hosting. Vimeo and YouTube are two very popular free platforms. Facebook is also a free video hosting platform however it does compress files. Be prepared to see the video quality reduce if you choose to upload your video to your Facebook Business page. The second option is to upload the file to your website but be warned videos can increase the loading speed of your website.
3. Embed the Video Link
Both YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook provide embed codes that can be directly added to website pages to ‘pull’ the video into the page.
4. Mark Up the Video for Search Engines
Use Schema markup to clearly mark the video properties to Google and other search engines. VideoObject Schema includes details such as the content or embed URL and can be used with HowTo Schema. Marking up the videos increases the chance of them being indexed by search engines.
Google Values Video: The New Video Indexing Report
There is a reason that digital marketing agencies like ourselves will encourage the use of videos. Not only do marketers see the value in video, but Google also recognises this valuable media format, allowing it to be found in Google search results, Google Images, video search results, and Discover. They’ve even launched a Video Indexing feature in Google Search Console, allowing website owners to track the coverage website videos receive in search (whether it appears in Google search or not).
This new feature also provides information about why a video might not be indexable. There are several reasons why Google cannot index a video; the file could be too large or too small, a thumbnail may be missing, or the URL could be invalid. All information can be found within the report, allowing you to identify and amend the issue easily.
In addition, if a video file is too large, not only will this cause indexing issues, but it could negatively impact core web vitals, an important SEO ranking factor. For more information about video indexing, please see the video below from Google.
For additional information or help with your video marketing strategy, the team here at SQ Digital can help you out. Please request your FREE SEO audit today to discover what we could do for your website’s SEO. Or, get in touch, and we will be more than happy to discuss our services with you.