You Need A Video

Most sites need at least one video, typically an introduction that describes who you are and what you do. There are several good marketing reasons to do this, involving a ‘human touch’. But one less-appreciated idea is this: search engines like videos. (Google especially likes Youtube videos–since Google owns Youtube.)

What do I mean by ‘search engines like videos’? If you look at a typical Search Results page, you’ll notice that videos now tend to rank at the top. The search gods are pushing content providers (you) towards making videos because human beings tend to find videos more interesting than text.

Read that last sentence again: search engines and social media, in fact all web providers are leaning more and more towards images and even more towards video. These providers prioritize video over images and images over text. This is referred to as ‘the rich web’ and it is where we’re all headed. I’m about to make a wild generalization, but still it is generally true so here we go: your content needs to be as rich as possible in order to rank as high as possible on searches.

So: Best search engine practice dictates that you create a good, one minute video that describes who you are and what you do and place it as prominently as you can on your web site.

Now, if you’re not video-savvy don’t freak out. This does not need to be some Oscar-worthy masterpiece. In fact, it can be something quite simple. And in other posts I’ll describe just how simple this can be.