Using Company Video to Improve Search Engine Rankings

by Cary Weston Video marketing is a secret among small business search ranking efforts it seems, but if done right, videos can really help you beat out the competition for first page rankings on specific keywords to help get more traffic. As for software, many folks have smart phones and the video feature on the iPhone for instance is a great and easy way to get a high quality video done for your business topic. You really don’t need much more than that as the iPhone allows you to edit the video on the phone as well. I’d suggest getting an external microphone to increase the quality of the sound – I’ve recorded videos on the iPhone using both the built in microphone and the external and the sound difference is amazing on the external. You can find them online for about $30. As for where to host, I would highly recommend YouTube for two key reasons that benefit small businesses greatly: 1. YouTube takes care of the processing to ensure that folks can watch your video regardless of the device or bandwidth speed they have. That alone is invaluable. 2. YouTube is owned by Google and Google respects its own products. Best practice is to create a YouTube channel for your business and upload the videos to that channel. Then, use the embed feature to place those videos onto the appropriate place in your website. This will give you twice the exposure and value for your video, as YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine. Tips for increasing your local search rankings using videos for your small business: 1. the title should include a keyword phrase your are trying to focus on. 2. the first sentence of the description should also include that keyword phrase 3. be sure to list your website address in the video description field 4. be sure to list your company name, address, and phone number in the description field 5. be sure to list a few targeted keyword phrases in a list within the description field. To see how videos can help you rank for a local search phrase, you can see some of my informational videos ranking well for the phrase “website companies in Bangor, Maine”. If you type that into Google, you should see videos holding spots on the first page. FINAL TIP: Competition is a fantastic motivator to engage in search ranking efforts. Think of the benefit of using video like this – if there are 10 spots on the first page of Google, and your business holds one of them, then there are nine other places for other companies to also share Google’s first page. If you can get a video to rank along with your website, you are now not only doubling your first page presence in Google, but you’re moving out one other competitive option from the front page. This information was provided by Cary Weston, of Sutherland Weston, a marketing and search optimization firm located in Bangor, Maine.