Online Promotional Videos and Video SEO

The second best search engine in the world starts with a Y. No, not Yahoo; YouTube! In November of 2008 YouTube beat out Yahoo in total searches and the gulf has only grown since then. The majority of searches might be related to entertainment, but a large number of companies have seen the benefits of using videos to promote their business – these promotional videos are a powerful tool in helping companies increase their conversion rates for sales. How can you make sure they work?

Let’s Look At Some Facts:

• People watching videos click for more information – the number goes up by about 30-40 percent compared to a traditional website!
• Viewers also make more phone-calls – calls to your business shoot up by about 16-20 percent.

A promotional video creates a personal connection between you and any potential client. More and more people have come to expect a video as a basic thing for a company – it’s no longer an innovative idea, it’s standard! Though the main purpose of promotional videos is to inform the audience and make them more comfortable in choosing you over another, the second benefit is the ability to drive traffic to your site.

This is where video SEO steps in.

The Benefit of Hosting Services
YouTube gives you the benefit of the second-largest engine in the world, and it creates search traffic on its own. Most large hosting services are probably watched by Google for search engine results, which is also good – but the downside? Any links which lead to the video will have YouTube in the title instead of your company name. It’s important to place a link leading back to your business in the description section!

The Benefit of Self-Hosting
Hosting a video on your website means you miss out on the huge YouTube searches – and you’re less likely to see your video listed with Google search results. … but it isn’t all bad. Self-hosting means that, when you are picked up by Google, the link points right back to your website: so be sure to give Google a Video Sitemap! It’s one of the most important keys to being listed.

If you host a video on your own website you’ll be missing out on YouTube searches and it’s less likely that your video will get listed on Google as compared to the major hosting services. On the other hand, the advantage of “self-hosting” is that if you do get picked up by Google the links to the video will point directly back to your website, so make sure you submit a Video Sitemap to Google as it is one of the keys to getting listed.