Why and How SEO Explainer Videos Can Boost Your Rankings
On the whole people like videos. From cat videos to Gangnam Style, they’re easy to consume, easy to share, and they can brighten up an otherwise dull day. So it should come as no surprise that explainer videos can please your search engine rankings too.
FYI, by SEO explainer videos I’m referring to any video you create that aims to help you win the SEO game. This is typically done by incorporating keywords and making sure your video is the answer that search engine users are looking for.
Anyway, in the following blog, I’ll outline all the reasons why a good SEO explainer video can help you conquer Google along with a few potential pitfalls you need to be aware of.
Video is one of Google's ranking factors
They lower bounce rates
One thing that shows Google whether or not your users are enjoying themselves is whether they choose to stay on your page. There can be many reasons why visitors bounce but one of them will be a lack of clear information about what the rest of the page consists of. A good explainer video, placed at the top of the page, offers visitors a quick and engaging overview of your product. This should serve as the ultimate invitation to explore the rest of the page.
They can boost time on page (dwell time)
Similarly, an SEO explainer video will help visitors explore more of the page. If you can hook interest with an explainer video, then visitors will have more reason to fully investigate everything else you have on your page. Dwell time can even be boosted by having an explainer video further down the page; hook your audience with a good headline, then build their interest with video.
Higher click-through rates
When you have fewer people bouncing and more visitors spending more time engaging with your page and your product, your click-through rate is likely to increase. If you’re running paid ads to a landing page, then your explainer video can be handy here too; higher click-through rates will be much kinder to your advertising budget.
If you host your video on YouTube then Google will favour it
Google owns YouTube and Google loves video. So much so that if it finds a good video that meets users’ needs, it may well prioritize it and jump it to the top of the search rankings. Granted, you’ll still need to have better content than your YouTube competitors. But if you don’t see a large amount of competition on YouTube, then playing the YouTube SEO game might be an easier route to the top spot of Google.
It's great for social media
Your SEO explainer video can be republished across your social channels – or anyone else’s social channels for that matter. This is another great place for your brand to show its face on – especially seeing as social posts with video get way more engagement. More importantly, social signals can be an SEO boost. By contributing to factors like brand recognition and brand reputation, social media exposure indirectly boosts your video in the rankings.
You can put keywords in the transcript
When you add closed captions to your video, this transcript will be picked up by Google. If you make your video incorporate relevant keywords, this will be another signal to Google that your video can help searchers find what they’re looking for. (Google likes it when searchers find what they’re looking for).
You can combine your explainer video with schema markup
Schema markup is structured data that helps Google understand what’s on your website better so that it can offer up “rich results.” Rich results being the media you often see at the top of the page that isn’t your typical blue link. In this case, your SEO explainer video may appear like the example below instead of the standard blue text link.
It’s great for backlinking
SEO is not just about great content. It’s also about other sites linking to your content. And when sites that have a strong domain authority do this, you’ll be sure to see a boost in your rankings. One thing to note, not all explainer videos will be as backlinkable as others. For example, a salesy/advertisment style explainer, something that’s probably more at home on a YouTube pre-roll, might not be as popular with bloggers and influencers as something more educational. Something like this for example.
Now that’s a huge generalization. Maybe your “salesy” explainer video is great case study material and every marketing blogger wants to reference it. Whatever you create though, one thing’s for certain; a great explainer video for your website means that’s one more piece of content that can get shared and get your brand to the top of the SEO rankings. Plus, even if it’s shared with nofollow links, that’s still more traffic to your site which can a) bring you more leads and b) have a positive knock-on effect to your SEO.
They can be a great tool for pitching influencers
If you are conducting a focused backlinking campaign, your video itself can be a great tool for pitching to any bloggers and influencers that might be interested in giving you a backlink. In this instance, they may not necessarily want to backlink to the explainer video itself but they may be interested in some of your other content pieces or maybe a guest post from you. Whatever kind of backlink you’re chasing, a good explainer video can be the intro you need if you want to build relationships with other webmasters.
What are some common mistakes people make when creating SEO explainer videos?
Creating a good SEO explainer video is not too different from creating any other type of explainer video. Write a good script with your audience front of mind whilst weaving in relevant keywords and you’ll be fine. However, there are one or two things that could hurt your SEO that you should watch out for.
Video can affect your page loading speed
If your page loading speed is slow, your SEO will suffer. Make sure you do a speed test on your page to check your video isn’t causing any issues. If you have to deal with any issues, a skilled developer who’s familiar with technical SEO should be able to help you out.
If you’re going after backlinks, don’t embed them to YouTube
Many business owners will host their videos on YouTube or Vimeo and then use an embed code to place the video on their page. Perfectly fine but just remember: if somebody backlinks to your video, the backlink will go to YouTube, not you. Instead, directly embed the video to your site AND YouTube so you can rank it in both.
Don’t over-optimize!
Adding too many keywords into a script will probably make the video feel unnatural and robotic. Google will pick up on this. Whilst you should always incorporate keywords remember, you’re writing for people. Not search engines.
Final thoughts
Both good explainer videos and good SEO are built upon the same thing: a solid idea of what your target audience is looking for. If you can create a video that addresses your audience’s issues with laser focus, then you’ll have the basis for a quality SEO explainer video.
At Bullseye Motion we put particular emphasis on crafting a quality script . A script that incorporates customer data and competition research so that you can both hook your audience’s attention and play the SEO game. If this sounds like the kind of comms your business could benefit from, click below to book a meeting with me, Bullseye Motion’s creative director.
P.S. all comments and feedback on this blog are appreciated! If there’s any way you think it could be improved, then feel free to shout and I’ll see if I can work them into a redraft. xx
