When video content means bad news for your site

Greetings and welcome back! In this week’s SEO copywriting video how-to, Heather addresses when video-only content can be bad news for your website.

You may be thinking “How can that be?” because first off, THIS is a video post, and it’s well known that a lot of people check out YouTube every day, and that YouTube results appear in Google’s SERPs…so how can video be bad news?

Listen in as Heather explains those circumstances when going strictly video can be counter-productive for your site’s search appeal, and how you can do so much better by adding textual content to accompany your video…

How can video work against you?

I know a lot of companies are now relying on videos for pretty much everything, probably because in a many cases, it’s easier to do something like “What I’m doing here today” or shooting video, than it is to hire someone qualified in SEO and content marketing best practices to write search engine optimized, textual content.

So what I see is companies creating a lot of video around their sales pages, around their FAQ pages, and even instructions on how to do things with their product or service – and that’s cool! You can certainly have that content as part of your site…

BUT the flip side is that…

• Not everyone will sit through a video – they’d rather read content instead.

There are some folks who will watch a video for pleasure and they love doing that, but when it comes to the business applications in video, they may prefer to read rather than wait for the video to provide the answers they need.

• If people want answers FAST, video will work against you.

Video will work against you for readers who wanted their information yesterday, already! In these cases, content will serve them better.

• Unfortunately, many companies just use video to describe their products/services.

But happily, there is a work-around for this need for speed in info-gathering and conversions, allowing you to have the best of both worlds!

Enjoy the best of both worlds!

Enjoying the best of both worlds is relatively simple and straightforward:

• Yes, include your video. But also include a transcript (or write completely unique content that summarizes the video) and have that on your site’s Web page.

If you check out the SEO Copywriting website (if you happen to be watching this on YouTube), you’ll notice that the above is exactly what we do in providing unique content that summarizes the video!

We embed the video in our blog, but we also make sure we summarize the video with text.  I’ve received a lot of thank-you’s from folks who say “I really love the videos, but I love the fact that I can also quick-skim the content and get an idea of what the video is about!”

• Your textual content can also include hyperlinks to other pages and reinforce the call to action.

The cool thing about including that textual content is that yes, it can position and do all those things you want it to do for Google, but from a Call-to-Action standpoint, you can include hyperlinks within that textual content that can point to other pages within your site – and that’s always wonderful, too!

• People who want video can watch your video. People who would rather read can read your content.

Folks who prefer reading and need your content fast can do so – they can get to that textual content as quickly as they need to, and find the answers they need! While folks who prefer video have their needs and preferences met, as well!

• It’s the best of both worlds!

And voila – you have the best of both worlds when you include textual copy with your video. Now go forth and do it! :)

Thanks for tuning in to this week’s SEO copywriting video how-to! As always, you’re most welcome to contact Heather Lloyd with any questions or comments below, or via her email at heather@seocopywriting.com, or via Twitter @heatherlloyd.