Making video is an expensive proposition for small businesses when compared to other marketing investments. What makes it even more daunting is the fact that videos are a tough sell. No wonder most marketers, including SEOs, shy away from such things. Video to them does not offer anything other than virality, branding, and improved conversions.
Having said that, it is important to note that video has the capability to secure high quality links back to your website. In this post we will see a few ways videos can be used to help our link building efforts.
Use video as a media type
Video is an effective media to deliver content. Present creative ideas via video. Content delivery via video is engaging and generates tremendous links. Make the content light weight, mobile friendly, and quick to load. Use HTML5 <video> to display or embed your video. JavaScript-focused implementation to embed video is also fine.
Use video as a link bait
The type of content is crucial. A video’s potential to go viral is no qualification, people share hundreds of video on social media. However, there is a subtle difference between sharing on social media and linking up to your video on their site; when they link up to your video in their site they are essentially telling their viewers to stop reading their content and watch your video. Therefore your video should create value for target groups and the content should be engaging, informative, and brief.
Host the video on your site or host it with a paid third party online video hosting provider. Embedding videos from Vimeo or YouTube is not going to help you much.
Use YouTube only when the content has social or viral element
If your video is going to generate substantial links then it should be used as platform to generate leads for link building. The key here is to keep track of those that embed your YouTube video. Send an email thanking them and build relationships with them. Such people can be converted to links to your site rather than to YouTube.com.
Use video to improve the quality of focused pages
There is sufficient evidence to prove that videos enhance the performance of commercially focused pages. Having videos on commercially focused pages generates a good amount of natural links across the board. It has been observed that organizations which began producing product videos almost doubled their back links within a matter of months.
As a part of your blogging strategy
Videos on blogs should be informative with soft branding. Include animated graphics and screencasts in the footage. Also make sure you record the video in one take.
Create videos for others
If you create good quality videos you are more likely to get top tier guest posts which come with linking opportunities. However, you should have a reputation of creating interesting and valuable video content for your site as well for others.
Video news releases
Support your press release with video news release that contains additional information and gives the context around the story you are telling. These are particularly helpful in PR campaigns. Not every journalist or editor has the time to pick up your press release and write a piece and publish it. If you have a video release, the editor just has to write a small paragraph and embed the video and click the publish option.