Putting Video On Your Business’s Site – And Then Reaping The SEO Benefits

a guest post by Jenna Smith

Video is an increasingly popular tool of businesses, bloggers, and advertisers these days. Thanks to its ease of use (bloggers can diversify their offerings and write less), its marketing advantages (viewers are more likely to notice video ads), and its SEO benefits (video is fifty times more likely than written content to appear on Google’s first page), the medium has quickly found favor among online users of all backgrounds and stripes. Gone are the days when online video reflected an entertainment outlet built around YouTube. Now, as more and more businesses get on board, the written word has suddenly lost some of its marketing luster.

How can your business utilize and take advantage of video? How can you incorporate the medium on your site and realize its SEO benefits? Here is a quick and simple X-step approach for accomplishing these objectives:

Step 1: Decide Your Video Content

Before putting video on your site, it is naturally necessary to determine what to make your video content about. There are a wide range of options here. You may want to give tutorials or demonstrations that show consumers how your product, service, or business operates. You might want to give insider looks at your company’s operations. Or you may simply opt for a standard digital advertisement approach.

Step 2: Place The Videos On Your Site

Once you’ve filmed a few videos, you can now post them online and begin reaping the SEO benefits. The first step towards doing this is insuring that your videos are embedded within your site. This can be done with videos uploaded on YouTube. If you use WordPress, however, downloading the VideoPress plugin is probably the easiest way to go. You can always take an online e learning class to get more specific instructions on video uploading.

Step 3: Add Tags, Titles, And An Archive

Now it’s time to maximize your videos so as to boost traffic and benefit SEO. There are a few simple tasks to keep in mind here. First, you should give titles and tags to your videos so that Google’s web-crawling bot can properly identify them. Second, make a dedicated section of your business’s site (i.e. a library or archive) where all your video posts are compiled. This can help increase click-throughs, lower bounce rates, and add greater site sophistication.

Step 4: Integrate With Social Media

Finally, while it’s great to have your site full of streaming videos that highlight your business and boost your SEO, the ultimate goal is to get consumers to actually watch what you’ve posted. Perhaps the best way to insure this is by integrating your videos with social media: every time a new video is posted, link to it from your Twitter feed and your Facebook page. Since consumers are always intrigued by videos, you can be sure that you’ll get some looks.

Following these four steps can help your business incorporate video onto its site in a beneficial way. While video is not right for every business, those that can create appropriate content can reap the rewards tremendously down the line.