Building Links with Video Content

Posted by Jacob Klein
You've finally done it. You are in possession of the hottest video the internet has ever seen.   It combines the incomprehensibly viral nature of  Rebecca Black's vocals with the undeniable epicness of the latest Game of Thrones trailer. Phone this one in, people– this video is going to sell itself. While it's true that some pieces of great content seem able to spread without much, if any marketing behind them, you're not the type of person who likes to take chances with your premium content. You've created some beautiful, HD-quality video content that's just begging to be shared and you want to give it the christening it deserves!

I recently found myself in a situation similar to the above description. I had a great piece of video but wasn't exactly sure how to make sure I was getting the ROI I knew it deserved. I wanted to make sure my ducks were in a row before I launched so I did what any responsible SEO does when he or she needs to develop a skill:  a crap-load of research. Here are some of the more actionable nuggets I've been able to glean from my foray into video marketing.

The SEO Benefits of Video Content – When Google crawls your site they are looking for several indicators including page quality, relevance and keyword instances. Multimedia objects add value to all three of these metrics. Videos also increase a user's Time On Page, an important indicator of page quality which seems to becoming more and more important every day. Not to mention people are more likely to link to your content if it contains multimedia content as demonstrated in Casey Henry's Moz piece on "What makes a link worthy post".  

Ecommerce sites should also seriously consider placing videos in other locations such as product pages. Aside from the added stickiness and quality added to your product pages, they also help you stand out on the SE