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Why Your Business Should Video Blog
Video blogging (adding clips to a blog) can help to drive traffic, lower bounce rate, increase engagement and conversions, and generally improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Internet marketing.
Video blogging also provides plenty of "different" marketing opportunities that written content can't - because it is a rich medium for communication.
Bloggers who rely on written content only may find their rankings in search engines suffering as Google continues to include more and more video results (especially from YouTube) in its organic search results.
Why start video blogging?
In order to capture as much valuable search traffic as possible, it is important for businesses and bloggers to create as much high quality, relevant and engaging content as possible. Finding ways to get that content in front of people is just as important.
Adding video can help content to rank more highly in search results, and adds new channels for online visibility. This is mainly because visual content is becoming more and more popular as a medium for social communication and marketing.
How to get started
Getting started with video blogging is super easy. All you need is a:
- decent webcam
- YouTube account
Most modern webcams come with built-in YouTube integration. Once you have created a YouTube profile, it will be easy to upload clips recorded with a webcam to your YouTube account.
YouTube makes it easy to annotate and describe video content, as well as embed it in other webpages or blog posts.
5 top reasons why video blogging is important
Most of the world's Internet traffic originates with search, and more specifically, Google search. Online marketing is all about finding innovative and creative ways to rank better in organic search results and drive traffic via social media, backlinks, and anywhere else potential readers and customers may be found.
This makes video blogging perfect for the following reasons...
1. Google search results include more YouTube content
With recent changes to Google's search algorithms, YouTube content is starting to feature more prominently in Google search results. From an SEO perspective, that is all the motivation you should need to start generating highly focused clips that come with SEO rich titles and descriptions (to help Google decide where to display the clip in search results).
2. YouTube is a great social marketing platform
One of the most important aspects of any blog is to drive a steady (and steadily increasing) flow of traffic. Building decent traffic volumes isn't always easy, and all succesfull bloggers use a combination of SEO, social and Internet marketing.
We've already seen how video blogging can help SEO by appearing in organic search results, but it's important to note that YouTube is a huge and potentially lucrative social platform that can be used to build a following of avid readers, viewers, listeners, fans, followers and customers.
By integrating YouTube into existing content marketing, SEM (search Engine Marketing) and social marketing efforts, you can add a new dimension to your blog or business' online profile.
3. Video helps to establish trust
Blogging is one of the most effective methods of online marketing. A good blog can not only drive organic search traffic, it can also integrate with social media to create buzz and hype.
Regardless of the business function of your blog (i.e. to generate revenue from advertising, affiliate links, nurture leads, or make sales), conversion rates will be higher when visitors "trust" you. Rich media allows people to see and hear you. Visual communication is hugely important, and there are plenty of non-verbal signals video can send that written content cannot.
In other words, people may decide they "like" you, trust you, understand you, simply by watching you talking about something - instead of reading what you have written.
4. Video can be more versatile
There are some things that written content is better at, and some things that video content is better at. For example, when I am doing research I look for written content because I can skim it and pull out the relevant information. When I am looking to learn a new guitar solo, I want to watch someone doing it.
Find out what aspects of your niche are best demonstrated with a clip, and present that information visually. This will improve visitors' experiences and will ultimately lead to more trust, authority and conversions down the line.
5. Video blogging offers additional opportunities to increase visibility
There are more and more opportunities to share clips on other platforms. Google wants people to use their platforms, and bloggers who share their video content are rewarded with additional exposure from these networks in search results.
In other words, a video blog has a different social and SEO profile to a standard content post. This can lead to different SEO and marketing opportunities that may not arise without rich media.
Do you have a video blog, or add clips to your blog? What's been your experience with video blogging and SEO? Has visual content made your blog more popular, or helped to drive more traffic and conversions?
Share your experiences in the comments.
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The problem is that many people don't have the time or patience to build up a good base of content via blogging.
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