Web Video SEO
You are 50 times more likely to rank on the front page if you have web video on your site.
Web Video SEO will ensure higher ranking. Google rate web video higher because it is a content rich medium and because web video it is hard to make. This is a big motivator for companies to commission web video for their sites. Even poor quality content will improve web video SEO and give a cheap boost to site ranking. This is a massive advantage in an environment where competitors are not using web video on their sites. Web Video with no content or purpose beyond fooling the google bot are known as “bot-bait videos”.
As it stands a great deal of web video goes unnoticed and unranked by Google because, amongst other things, the bot can’t see iframes. Iframe embeds are favoured by hosting sites especially Vimeo but YouTube and many of the commercial hosting sites. To get them seen and ranked a sitemap must be submitted to Google. Many sites haven’t done this.
Whether the Google bot pays much attention to the quality of the video is a matter of opinion. What is certain is that bait-bot videos with good web video SEO will improve your ranking. How long will that last?
Is Web Video Content Important?
Google’s wants content. Google is what it is because of the ability of its search engine to serve up good content, instantly. That’s not going to change. Panda and Penguin updates have been policing site content since 2011. Many sites have lost rank and some have been penalised for passing off spammy “bot-bait” as real content. If anything Panda and Penguin have been good for websites with web video because people want web video and Google wants people.
Most people presume that Google has no metric for the quality of web video on the site. That isn’t the case. There are a number of ways to determine whether web video is being being played, how long people are watching, even at what point they stop watching. But even beyond what is already available Google has a patent pending for Relevance-Based Image Selection. All very heady stuff. It is only a matter of time before Google polices web video content for quality. How will this affect web ranking?
The statistics say that your site is fifty times more likely to rank on the front page if it contains web video. If quality metrics are applied many sites will instantly lose ranking. Website owners who take web video SEO seriously will get an automatic boost. Companies with a web video strategy in place will get a very real return on investment. Immediate implementation of an effective web video strategy pays dividends immediately and promises a future bonanza.
