What’s the Search Value of Video

Rebecca Carey 7 years ago

At the beginning of 2014 Google began to show video (also known as rich snippets) to answer specific search terms. The idea was that any domain could host their own video content and see it rank in Google. However, later in the year Google scrapped this, so now, the bulk of these rich snippets is from YouTube (which Google owns). This is a similar approach to how they removed Authorship from search results.

Why and what does this mean?

• One theory is that making YouTube the source of almost every video search result would boost YouTube traffic. The more traffic YouTube gets the more adverts it sells, and therefore the more money Google gets. You’d like to think this wasn’t Google’s prime motivator, but I would put good money on the fact it came into the conversation when they were thinking about doing this.

• Google is trying to get people to use the ‘tabbed search’ features and by removing a lot of videos from universal search forces users to go onto the tab more often. On the tab feature any domain can still rank for video snippets.

• The main reason for rich snippets being implemented was to enhance the user experience in helping to bring search queries to life, but it was easy to exploit to manipulate search rankings – something Google polices heavily. They were easy to spam and this meant people were making poor quality video just for SEO purposes.

• Censoring videos is a difficult task and one that cannot be handled with an algorithm. This meant people were exploiting the system again – you could even get a rich snippet without even having a video on your webpage.

• With the recent mobile update, video results render awkwardly on some domains and in some cases don’t work at all. With YouTube being so efficient and having a great app, it made sense to strip back the results so Google knew exactly what it was dealing with.

This meant a big shift in the way businesses used video marketing. Although search value for video is, unfortunately, almost non-existent, it doesn’t mean that video marketing is a wasted resource. Video content still brings lots of opportunities that definitely should not be missed. It hasn’t become redundant, it’s just your job to change the way you utilise its power.

Video should no longer be part of an SEO strategy, but part of a content strategy.

Although this graph is from 2009-2010, it shows just how much video is being consumed across the world, especially from YouTube. Almost half of all video consumed, is hosted by YouTube, reaching almost 35billion by May 2010.

But this still doesn’t tell us about the value of advertorial YouTube videos.

So if it really is true that there is no SEO value in having them on your site, why do businesses still use, and pay for, video content and how do they measure it success?

It’s all about the consumer. People like videos. This means that if you’ve got video content on your website, people are more likely to stay on your page for longer. Some recent research Zazzle Media did with our proprietary tool ‘ROADMAP’ (which monitors Google’s algorithm signals) has heavily suggested that user engagement metrics result in better organic rankings.

On average, people stay on a website two minutes longer if it includes videos. So, if you’ve got good video content on your site then you’re likely to keep people interested for longer and in turn rank higher in Google. Even though Google cannot crawl videos, the fact that it gives a website extra usability and decreases bounce rates will see your site being rewarded.

Brand awareness is now a huge part of video too. Although the video will go straight on YouTube, good video content can get people to engage with your brand. Once people are on your business’s YouTube page, if they like the content, the chances are, they will check out your website. The ‘extra added value’ part here is that once a person ‘likes’ a business’s YouTube channel, their videos will start to appear on the user’s default homepage due to the customisation of YouTube.

Businesses should set up video content as they would any written or visual piece. It needs to be engaging, the title should be interesting and the description should include all the keywords you’d like it to rank for. If a video ranks highly on YouTube, it is far more likely to be included as a rich snippet in Google’s universal rankings.

Something that I think will start becoming more prevalent, is videos ability to convert a user into a customer. Now, this is mainly for retail outlets but it’s something that is growing. Sites such as ASOS and TheWatchShop are spearheading the trend with 360° catwalk displays and video being used to unveil products, so you can really see sizes and what they look like on a person. Although again these videos have no search value, they provide a lot of new opportunities in aiding the selling of goods. People like videos, they like real life and that’s exactly what this is. Seeing what a product looks like in real life.

There are so many different types of video content out there now. Whether it’s a walk through guide, product endorsement, review or a viral video, there will be something out there for your business to use.

Here is a list of 10 types of online video that you should be looking at.

This actually related directly to search value, but it’s not specifically the video. Posts that include video footage attract 3x more inbound links than text content alone. That is a huge increase and something that will undoubtedly affect your universal rankings.

Basically, if you have a strategy that doesn’t include video footage then you’re missing out on a massive opportunity.

So, what does all this information tell us? Well, video content certainly isn’t dead. It’s just in the middle of a very drastic change. No, it doesn’t have any direct SEO value. But yes, it does still bring in links. Yes, it does still affect your rankings. Yes, it does keep people on your page for longer and even make people buy your products.

Who knows, maybe in the next couple of years Google will bring back rich snippets for more and more domains and make it more difficult to spam? For now though, people have to completely switch up their video strategy and think of more innovative, interesting and creative video in order to compete.

Gone are the days where people could post uninteresting, badly filmed videos and still pull in links. In order to get your video noticed you need to put something new and interesting out there. Something that will grab the viewers’ attention and make them want to either stay on your site, or click through to your site from your YouTube channel.