Google loves video
About a year ago Google changed the way they assess and rank websites and for some strange reason many businesses haven’t realised that the good old SEO techniques are not as important as before. Yes, sure it’s still good to have well constructed text, keywords and the like, but these days it’s the web 2.0 tools that are really driving the search rankings.
Today, the best way of getting good “Google Juice” (or good rankings), is by using video, followed by podcasts, blogs, links and last static web pages – in that order!
Why? Because they help drive new visitors to websites and they encourage visitors to stay for longer.
Estate agents and recruitment agencies around the world cottoned on to this some time ago and have seen dramatic increases in page views. For example a recent survey in the USA found that having 16 videos on your real estate sites increased page clicks by more than 30%.
But it’s not simply a matter of dusting of the handy-cam and telling the world why it must buy your product.
There’s a big difference between producing television adverts and online videos. Sure they’re probably about 30-60 seconds long and both use the same kit. But that’s missing the point.
TV advertising is about the viewer “leaning-back” - watching whatever’s put in front of him (or her) whilst online video is about the viewer “leaning-forward” - where they are in total control of what they’re watching.
So, if you’re going to succeed with online video try to make sure it’s relevant, engaging, sharable (use hulu, YouTube and the rest) and, last but not least, don’t forget the meta-data and file names (for Google’s sake).
