SEO Greatness With Animated Videos
SEO (search engine optimisation). These three letters mean a lot for businesses who want to be seen in popular search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. But what many businesses don’t know is that video is fast becoming the medium of choice when vying for the top spot in the search rankings (Search engine ranking is basically the position at which a particular site appears in the search engines results).
Can you remember the last time you watched a video that you liked? A great video is very effective when it comes to engaging audiences, and it achieves the same positive effect for businesses.
In fact, Online Publishers Association found in 2007 that 80% of people recollect a video ad they have observed in the past 30 days. 26% of people then look for further details about the product, 22% take a look at the products website, 15% take a peek at the brand website, and 12% part with their money by making a purchase.
However, not all video content is equal. Peoples expectations grow as time goes on, so a high quality animation coupled with an engaging script makes all the difference in attracting viewers, and the opposite effect will happen to the poorer quality scripts and animations.
Enjoyment of video ads increase purchase intent by 97% and brand association by 139%.
Unruly
Video content should be entertaining and also optimised for popular search engines. Your animation style should complement the message you want to convey to achieve great results.
So, how does one attain SEO greatness with video? Here are some useful tips that will help you on your way to getting the powerful video that you need.
Why Play The SEO Game?
Businesses often make the mistake of optimising their website and videos the wrong way. What many of them don’t realise is that Google and the other major search engines continually update their criteria on how they rank websites.
If in the past videos were largely ignored by search engines, now they are highly considered and are currently one of the best methods available in increasing your search rankings.
These search engines have the user’s best interests in mind. They look for sites that follow certain rules and standards – those who meet the criteria go up the rankings. So, as long as you comply with the given rules and focus on optimising your content, you can expect your website to rise in status. More on SEO Rules (Google Panda Updates: Quick Guide To Avoid Being Hit).
Love For Visual Content
Unsurprisingly the big search engines noticed how much people were enjoying watching visual content on the world wide web and knew the importance it had in our future; hence why Google snapped up YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006, it’s then most expensive acquisition. Statistics today show just how important – YouTube is now the second most popular search engine, with streaming video sites such as Vimeo enjoying a boom in popularity.
YouTube users watch more than 6 billion hours of video per month.
YouTube – 2013
So, we can safely say that using video as a marketing tool is sound practice, but you will need to effectively draw viewers in and keep them engaged to reap all the benefits.
We Need Sticky Content
Has your website got sticky content? Major search engines factor in how long visitors stay at a particular website. Having visitors come in and leave in less than 5 seconds won’t help much in gaining ranks, but if your websites content is engaging them long enough and making them stick around, you just might find yourself climbing on top.
Draw them in with a compelling video animation. A well-made explainer video will last 60 to 90 seconds at best, but it is more effective than you think – According to Forrester Research’s Dr. James McQuivey, a minute of video roughly translates to 1.8 million words!
When they reach the end, a call-to-action naturally greets them. For example, the viewer can get an option to click on a link to get to another webpage (where you can try for a conversion), they can be asked to sign up for something, fill out a short form or be directed to a purchase page. All these options can make them stay for longer and boost your rankings even higher.
Attract Some Feedback
Major search engines look at how well a particular website interacts with its audience. Some solid statistics include the number of feedback and comments given at the end of the content.
What does this translate to? More comments and likes means that the content provided is very useful or engaging to web users and visitors.
A well-made video should draw viewers in and make them leave comments. The animation should compel the viewer to take an active role and make them express their feelings, opinions and enjoyment. An open invitation for discussion is highly beneficial, especially if it has key phrases and useful information.
Use Kick-Ass Keywords
Major search engines have moved the focus away from keywords, but that doesn’t mean you have to completely abandon them. They are still very important in helping your website become more visible to your target audience, and in reaching the ‘search engines results page’ (SERP). A SERP is the set of results that a search engine returns based on a specified word or key phrase query.
Animation videos should include keywords (also known as Metadata) and key phrases that can be picked up by search engines. You can do this by adding keywords in the videos title and key phrases in the supporting content and summary.
Avoid keyword stuffing though – search engines can spot unnatural placement of key phrases and will penalise your website in the rankings. The keywords should be included naturally and within context, so you may need to research the most relevant keywords for your video before adding them in.
You can also make use of transcripts to support your video. Doing this makes it accessible to wider audiences while providing an opportunity to put in more key phrases. Some of the extra audiences you will acquire are people who are hearing impaired, or those who cannot read or speak English.
Transcripts are great for SEO and SERPs, and more importantly, they are great for YouTube’s search engine, which allows for it to be indexed and crawled, further boosting your website ranking.
Use A Thumping Thumbnail
Most people still use previews to gauge whether they should watch a video or not. A still image, or otherwise known as a thumbnail, draws the viewers in by previewing your content with a very attractive image.
Which one would you think people would click to watch – an uninspiring still image, or a colourful and relevant thumbnail?
Getting your visitors through the door is very important if you want them to watch your video so choose a thumbnail that you’d prefer to click.
Host That Killer Video
Uploading that animation video to your website is the first step, but you have to make sure that your host can handle it. Otherwise, your website could get bogged down and become unappealingly slow. Many companies like We Love Promotion Biz use professional video hosting services like Youtube, Vimeo Pro or Wistia to hold and stream the videos. All you’ll need is to simply copy an embed code to add it to your website.
Also, you may want to upload it onto the more popular streaming sites such as YouTube or Vimeo that have a large user base. YouTube has one billion users and Vimeo has around 100 million users and both are easy to use and you can gain more views, comments, likes and shares this way. Your video can even make it to online greatness if it becomes viral!
Don’t forget to post it up to the major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. Each has their own unique community that you can take advantage of.
More is definitely better when looking for places to upload your video, so make sure to post it where it can be seen by millions of people!
Generate Website Backlinks
SEO, SERPs, Keywords and Thumbnails. And now, backlinks?
Major search engines also take into account how many backlinks a particular website has. How does one create backlinks? If you have a high quality video with everything that we’ve talked about in place, this is easy. When a viewer is happy with the video animation you made, they will share it within their social circle by means of providing a link of it on their page or website.
These ‘links’ that lead their own audiences to your website’s video page are directly connected to how you are ranked by search engines. You may improve upon this criteria by asking your viewers to link it to their pages if they find it useful or engaging. The more websites that sponsor your video link, the better chance your target audience will find your content.
Beware of spamming these links to irrelevant poor quality pages and websites, this will harm your ranking. Backlinks are something that will naturally grow in time and will blossom as time goes on and more connections are made.
Upload A Video Sitemap
It is important to setup a video sitemap if you have videos hosted on your website or on other platforms. Doing this will help major search engines identify your video content and index it to the appropriate categories.
Once search engines have it indexed, then you can see your animation video’s thumbnail the next time you look it up online. A video that appears on a search has more chance of being found by your target audience.
Videos have a 41% higher click through rate than their plain text counterparts.
ReelSEO
In summary, having an engaging and high-quality video is crucial to being found on the major search engines, but you’ll have to optimise it as suggested above and accompany the video with some relevant keywords. These tips are sure to boost your SEO position and put your company closer to success!
The benefits of a well-made animation video for a website is truly amazing. If you are thinking of using videos to achieve SEO greatness, then get in touch. We love producing high quality explainer videos for companies. Get a free, no obligation, quotation today.