Video Marketing
What You’ll Learn About Video Marketing In This Article
- How Video Marketing Can Increase Your Profits
- Where to Get Free HD Video Clips You Can Use
- Free Tool To Optimize Video For Your Website
- Why Video Marketing Improves Your SEO
- And much, much more!
Why Is Video Marketing So Important?
Video marketing increases engagement, and the more time people spend engaged in your brand, the more likely it is that they will like, learn about and trust you.
To put it simply: engagement means everything for your marketing!
The possibilities with video marketing are endless; from improved SEO to greater sales.
Video Marketing: Stop Fighting It And Jump In!!!
Maybe you’ve been avoiding the addition of video to your content marketing repertoire because you thought it was too expensive.
Maybe you’ve tried producing a video several times, but were unsuccessful.
Maybe you made a good video, but just didn’t know what to do with it once it was finished.
Or maybe using a video with your content just didn’t occur to you at all. Well, if you’re in the game, you’d better get hopping with some great video content – or you’ll get left behind. Some of your competitors are already out there, killing it with video.
ALL The Bigs Are Doing Content Marketing With Video
Rand Fishkin of Moz has Whiteboard Friday, Brian Dean and Neil Patel have tons of videos on SEO and marketing that they incorporate in their blogs and Youtube channels. Steve Rayson of Buzzsumo and Tim Suolo of Ahrefs have exquisite tutorials on the web. And that’s just to name a few.
SEO: A Huge Benefit Of Adding Video To Your Content Marketing
Video adds watch time to your blog and thereby improves your SEO. One of Google’s ranking factors in determining your search engine result, according to the history books, is how much time people spend on your website or blog post.
Google equates this with the value of your content; the more time spent on your site = the more valuable the information is on your site. Video is a great way to hold your audience’s attention and keep them on your site longer.
Face It: People Are Tired of Reading!
This is true for a lot of people. Maybe reading is part of their job, so they consider it work. Or maybe part of your blog traffic comes from students. What, they haven’t read enough?!
Think about it, if given the choice between reading a 2000 word article or watching a 3 minute video- what do you think most people would choose?
Even if part of your audience loves your writing, they’ll probably gravitate towards your video first. You need to appeal to people who like to read and people who like to watch video in order to cash in on gobs of traffic.
Video Marketing Should Be Entertaining As Well As Informative
Your content marketing has a purpose and that is to attract prospects to your product or service so that eventually you can convert them into customers. You do this by making your video entertaining and informative. They are not mutually exclusive!
How Does Video Tie In With Social Media?
After you finish your blog post you don’t just let it sit on your website – you amplify it through email campaigns and social media. If your visual content is really entertaining or engaging, it is more likely to get liked, commented on and shared on social media.
These are signals that Google takes into account when deciding your SEO fate: social shares. And social shares increase the likelihood of getting backlinks.
The Problem With A Lot Of Marketing Videos…
They don’t relate to their audience. If you want to engage people – you have to speak to them in their language, and I don’t mean Spanish or Chinese, I mean “emotional language”.
For example, you see a ton of personal injury lawyer commercials on TV with a woman standing there asking if you’ve been hurt in an accident, by a doctor, hospital or by a certain product. Ok, she’s telling you how much money you may be able to receive as a reward, but she is talking “at” you, not “to” you.
You Need Audience Appeal!
If you are a personal injury law firm and you’re looking for more clients, show some empathy!
Part of your research should be interviewing clients you already have and asking them their first and foremost concerns if they’ve been injured in an accident.
If a person has been seriously hurt in an accident and is in the hospital, chances are they don’t have a clue what to do.
They’re scared to death wondering who will take care of their family, who will make the next mortgage payment so they don’t lose your house. Who will cover their medical bills?
Maybe they don’t have insurance, what then? Who will pay their bills if they have to take time off of work and go to court for several years?
These are just some of the real things people worry about when they are hurt in an accident, not just a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The video that talks to the person in their own emotional language, answering their concerns, wins the race.
Point to take note of: some of your research needs to be conducted in the real world, with human beings, not just on the web with search engines.
How To Optimize Your Video For SEO
First and foremost: Do Your Keyword Research BEFORE Making Your Video!
I can’t stress this point enough! You need to be as meticulous as possible when researching your keyword. This research will impact everything that follows. And doing your research before making your video will save you precious time and money down the road, bank on it!
What do people looking for your services or product want to know? What questions are they asking? What phrases do they use when they do a search?
For some terrific ideas on what questions people are asking about your product, go to https://answerthepublic.com/. You type in a keyword related to your product, and it will tell you the most commonly asked questions relating to it. Great tool!
Take some of the questions you find on Answer The Public and type them into a Google Search Bar. Now you have even more information to help you with your topic.
Another Shortcut To Help You With Youtube SEO
Go to Youtube and start typing your keyword into the search bar. Before you finish typing, Youtube will provide you with some search options underneath the search bar, the same way Google does.
These suggested searches reflect the most commonly searched for keywords on Youtube, related to your topic. You should try and include one or more of these topics in your content.
Once You’ve Decided Which Keyword To Base Your Video On, You’ll Have To Come Up With A Script
Writing a script for your video can be the hardest part of making it. The technical part- you can always find someone to do that. It’s the script that buries most videos.
And remember what I said earlier about “emotional language”: your video is speaking to a human being. Someone with goals and desires just like your own; the goal to be happy, to succeed, to provide security for your family… you get the picture.
The next time a commercial pops up before a Youtube video -and you can’t wait the five seconds to press the “skip” button, pay attention to why. What would you want to see in a commercial that would make you watch the whole thing? How would you make it differently?
Now search the videos on Youtube that pop up for your keyword. See which ones are at the top.
You should definitely watch the first few videos that pop up on Youtube for your keywords. After all, this is your competition. Why are they there? They must be doing something right!
Brian Dean will tell you in his videos on SEO, one way to get more people to click on your video is to have a really eye catching thumbnail in colors that are not commonly used on Youtube. More clicks add up to more watch time. More watch time = better rankings.
Optimizing A Video To Embed Directly Onto Your Site Vs. Optimizing It For Youtube
Optimizing a video can have several different meanings; for example optimizing it for speed vs. optimizing it for your target keyword.
You need to do both if you intend to embed the video directly onto your website -optimize it for speed and your keyword. Shrinking the file size is the best way to optimize the video for speed. This will keep your website loading fast, so Google doesn’t penalize you for having a slow loading time.
A great tool for shrinking video file size is Handbrake. Youtube has a ton of different tutorials on how to use this valuable download.
If you intend to post your video on Youtube, you don’t have to worry about optimizing it for speed – Youtube carries all the weight so it won’t slow down your website’s loading time.
Now, no matter where you intend to post your video, whether it’s directly onto your website or on Youtube first, you still need to optimize it for your keyword.
This starts off with labeling the video file name for your chosen keyword. You do this after you have optimized the video for speed on Handbrake and downloaded it back onto your computer.
If you are posting your video directly from your computer to Youtube, label the video file while it’s still on your computer- before you upload it.
You do this by left-clicking the mouse next to the name of the video already showing underneath the thumbnail. When the cursor appears, type in the new name, which is your keyword, and erase the old one.
Labeling the video file with your keyword is a step towards ranking higher on Youtube, one of many, I should say!
Advanced Tip For “Deep” Optimizing Your Video!
While you are still hovering over the video thumbnail on your computer, right-click the mouse. A box will appear. The top of the box should say “Open” and the bottom section should say “Properties”.
Click on Properties. A new box will open. Tabs at the top will read, General, Security, Details, Previous Versions. Click on the Details tab. Another box will open. You will see a section for Description and underneath it Title. Next to Title type in your keyword.
Then go down to Rating and click over each star until all 5 are yellow. Under that is Tags. Add your main keyword and 3 other variations of it. Underneath that is Comments. Add a description here using your keyword as naturally as possible. One or two short paragraphs will do.
Now scroll down to the section that says Origin, and next to Author Url, type in your web address. Go all the way down to the bottom of the whole box, and click Apply, then Ok. Done!
So How Do I Get My Video Onto Youtube?
Assuming you already have a Youtube channel set up, sign in to it. On the upper right side of your computer screen (desktop), near your sign-in icon is an arrow pointing up. Click on this arrow and a new screen will open.
You will see a box that says “Select files to upload”. There will be another arrow pointing up inside the box. Click on it. It will take you to your computer files where you will choose the video you want to upload. Click on the video thumbnail, click on “open” on your computer, and the video will upload to your Youtube channel.
Ok, I Uploaded My Video Onto Youtube, Now What?
Perfectly fair question. I mean, you don’t want to be wandering around the desert without a compass and a map, right? Once you’ve uploaded your video onto Youtube, you will have the option of adding a title and a description, as well as “tags”.
The title of your video should include your keyword – the farthest to the left as is practical. Remember, Uncle Google reads from left to right, giving precedence to what comes first.
The video description is another fantastic opportunity to use your keyword. Remember to only use your key word in a natural way, meaning “less” is “more”! If you overstuff your content with the keyword, some animal sent by google will come along and knock you down.
The video description on Youtube should be the length of a short blog article- at least 150+ words long. Google will read this description and count it towards your SEO.
And, whenever possible, add the video transcription. When I say “transcription”, I mean what the narrator or characters are saying. This will help with SEO because your video will naturally include your keyword.
You will also have a choice of which thumbnail to use, or you can create one of your own and download it from your computer.
Reminder: make sure to add your keyword in the video title, description and tags, as far to the left as you can naturally place it.
How To Add Video Directly To Your Blog Post From Your Computer
Ok, you’ve done all your video optimization, now it’s time to get that video onto your website! To add it to your blog, assuming you are already logged in to your WordPress Dashboard, you will first have to upload the video from your computer to your Media Library – easy peasy.
Go to the left hand column of your WordPress Dashboard. Go down to Media. When you hover over it with the mouse, you’ll see Library, Add New. Click on Add New. You’ll see a new screen with Drop Files Here or Select Files. Click on “Select Files”.
Now your computer will open up a screen with your thumbnails. Click on the video thumbnail you are adding to your website, then on bottom right of your computer screen, click “Open”. The video will now download to your the Media Library on your website.
Now go to the blog post you want to add the video to by going to the left hand column of your Dashboard and clicking on “All Posts”. In the new screen that opens up, you will see a list of your blog posts. Choose the one you want to add the video and click on it. This will take you to where you can edit your post.
Now take your mouse and click on the post where you want the video to go. The cursor will remain there. Then “mouse on up” to the top left side of your screen and click on the Add Media Tab. (This is not the same as Add Media in the black, left-hand column of your Dashboard. It is in the header of the page, directly above your post.)
Clicking on the Add Media tab will take you to the Media Library. Choose the video you want to add and click on it. On the bottom right side of the screen, you’ll see a blue tab that reads Insert Into Post. Click it. Done. Your video will appear on the blog page right where the mouse left the cursor.
You can preview your post to make sure it looks the way you want it to by clicking on the Preview tab, upper right-hand corner of the screen.
Don’t forget to click on the blue Update tab in the right-hand column before leaving the page, or your changes will be lost! You know, like The Minnow in Gilligan’s Island!
How To Add Video To Your Blog Post From Youtube
Once you’ve uploaded your video on Youtube, and optimized it, it’s time to add it to your website or blog. Go to your Youtube account and log in. Click on your icon, upper right side of screen. In the drop down, click on My Channel.
On the next screen, choose the video for your post, click on the thumbnail. Now the video is on the screen. Below the video on the right side it says, Share -click on it. A box will appear with the url of the video – ignore it! Go down to Embed- click on it.
Now on a new screen, you will see a code, framed in brackets. The first and last words within the brackets are Iframe. Copy the whole code, including the brackets. Go back to your post editing page.
Upper right hand side of the page, in the header, it says, Visual, Text. Click on Text. New screen. Place the mouse where you want the video to go in the post and paste it. Preview. Update. Done.
The Importance of Audio in Your Video Marketing Strategy
High quality video demands great audio. This means hiring a terrific voice over actor or a spokesperson, along with background music. If you watch a video on Youtube with a person speaking vs. one with just visuals, the difference is like night and day.
Adding a narrator to your video can make a better connection with your audience: you’ve got someone speaking directly to them.
Another benefit of this is you can transcribe the audio and Google will read the transcription, which naturally will include your keywords. It’s another bite at the “SEO apple”.
You’re Wondering How Much It Costs, Right?
The cost of putting together a video can vary greatly. Let’s face it- anyone with a smart phone can make a video. All you need is a story, right?
There are some factors that go into the budget like; will it be an actual video shoot on location, will you be interviewing a person in an office, using actors to recreate scenes, or maybe you just want to opt for a spokesperson with some compelling copy to read in front of a video background.
High definition video footage can be purchased cheaply on the web, if you know where to look. This can help keep your costs down.
Either way there will be costs for scriptwriting and post production, including editing the final version.
The cost of a quality 1 minute video commercial can range anywhere from $1,000 and up, depending on some of the above factors. You always have the option of shopping around.
Free HD Video Stock Footage (No Gimmicks!)
Here is a list of 3 excellent sites that offer free stock video footage that will make you look like a pro!
Conclusion
Video on your website can increase your conversion rate by letting people “see” what they’re getting.
Adding high quality, entertaining video to your blog posts increases the odds of social sharing and backlinks.
Adding engaging video to your content improves the SEO by keeping people on your site longer.
Video is accessible to people on all kinds of budgets
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