Everyone is talking about creating and marketing videos these days. The marketing benefits are clear: Videos spread well, generate engagements on social media and are able to still attract attention in our world of information overload.
But can videos also enhance your SEO strategy?
Well, we don’t know everything about Google’s ranking signals, so we cannot be sure if there’s a direct factor there. Whether Google “likes” pages with videos on them more than pages without videos remains a secret.
But there are more indirect SEO benefits that are contributing here:
1. SERP real estate
Videos are taking a lot of real estate within Google’s search result pages, both on mobile and desktop. Google uses so-called “video carousels[1]” to display related videos for many search queries.
In fact, on a mobile device, a video carousel takes the whole screen, and for many search queries it takes quite some time to scroll past:
Image source: Screenshot by the author
According to Mozcast[2], video carousels appear for the third of search queries. That’s a lot of SEO opportunities to dominate your target SERPs!
If you brand your video well and optimize your video Youtube page[3], one of these videos in a carousel will remind your target customer of your brand and increase your chances of conversion.
2. Rich snippets
A video-rich snippet is an enhanced search snippet that displays a video thumbnail next to your link. It is a good way to make your search snippet stand out.
Image source: Screenshot by the author
Resources
Video rich snippets are also surprisingly easy to get.
Unlike video carousels, video rich snippets send traffic to your site, versus the YouTube video page. To make this easier: