You’re probably working on your content strategy, and video has come up. So, you are asking this big question: does embedding YouTube videos help SEO, is there a big payoff, and how is the work done? Or you might have read an article or heard at a conference about videos in your content strategy but wanted to see for yourself the truth and best strategy when adding videos.
It’s a solid question. The connection between embedded videos and better search rankings isn’t always obvious. The short answer is yes, embedding YouTube videos on your website, blog posts, and overall site pages really can improve search rankings, but how it impacts it isn’t very clear because embedding YouTube videos properly has certain conditions and criteria to follow that have an impact so, does embedding YouTube videos help SEO, well we have some data to go through.
Table of Contents:
- The Video SEO Landscape
- The Mechanics: How Embedding YouTube Impacts SEO
- Does Embedding Youtube Videos Help SEO, But With Best Practices
- Conclusion
The Video SEO Landscape
Google owns YouTube. There are many ways Google is making money; YouTube is one that takes up a lot of time by viewers. If we were to give Google truth serum, they would tell us, “if it benefits our goals, there’s a pretty good chance we’ll factor it into search.”
Video marketing is a good practice. Wyzowl’s annual survey of marketing pros and consumers found that 90% reported positive ROI from their video marketing efforts.
The Mechanics: How Embedding YouTube Impacts SEO
Let’s say you did not see what we wrote at the beginning of the article about Google and YouTube being one business and so you still want us to prove to you “does embedding YouTube videos help SEO?”. There are many SEO experiments published showing the positive benefits that websites received regarding traffic, Google positioning, and traffic value.
One key factor is “dwell time.” This is how long someone stays on your page. Video is naturally engaging, so having video means 40% higher average dwell time than pages without video. Video tends to hold people’s attention and so when dwell time is low, that impacts search rankings.
Video can show up on google searches as a video result. Google Search will do this for all videos if set properly. That video result provides Google with added video information.
Beyond dwell time, there is also just a basic user preference for consuming content. Your user visitors are reading and watching. Providing both options increases search performance.
Getting Comprehensive: More Content, Better Rankings
Google scans the internet and learns from user behavior from people interacting with pages, posts, and videos. If you searched for a product review, would your user not benefit from someone actually talking and showing themselves using that product in a 5-minute video, that is added as 800 words of spoken text content?
So when someone watches the whole thing, Google sees that the viewer had higher engagement, so if someone did a search from “apple iphone review,” which page, content, and format did users interact more? Google has no reason not to consider the video as content that helps a page’s search rankings, as long as it benefits them.
As Google stated, when creating content, it needs to “provide a substantial, complete, or comprehensive description of the topic.”
Video Quality is Crucial
Simply posting and embedding videos won’t have a big impact. You will be fighting your SEO efforts unless those videos are comprehensive.
Consider what Google values when publishing video: is it of great quality, user-helpful, and engaging? These are all things to consider in your SEO strategy, both Google Search and YouTube.
Bad video quality:
- Poor sound or visuals.
- Unclear points being communicated.
- Self-promotional and lacking benefit to a viewer.
Great videos generally meet a higher criteria list:
- Shows expertise of the author.
- Clear title showing subject matter.
- Clear use case.
- Professional, high-quality audio.
Case Study: How Adding Videos Can Impact Pages, Post and Traffic
Digital agency, Vital, published data results from video embedded on one of its client’s blog posts.
| Key Findings: | Results: |
|---|---|
| Keywords Position Increases: | 9 |
| Increased average Google Search ranking for the 345 keywords the blog post ranks | Position improvements 12.6 to 8.9 |
| Added Video Schema Markup. | Post moved to the # 1 organic position. |
These findings show that using videos helped that client’s page rankings. When adding video content to existing site pages, it improves organic search performance by 10% to as much as 250%.
Does Embedding YouTube Videos Help SEO, But With Best Practices
It’s not simply about uploading a video to YouTube but about creating content that users actually use.
Matching Video and Page Content is Key
Relevance is the starting point. If you have a page covering plumbing parts and embed a video covering cooking instructions, that does nothing. Embed videos onto content and pages covering related and in-depth subjects.
Think: same topic, deeper dive. This approach makes both your page and your video assets work together instead of fighting each other.
For those managing their own videos, remember lazy loading. If you have speed issues, use this technique on any video to load only after clicking play. This solves any load time concerns about embedded videos.
YouTube Video SEO: What to Do on YouTube
Consider if Google gives preferred video placements based on how the owner benefits when people are more engaged with video. This means you can embed on a page on your website about the same topic with higher authority, but you still will want your video search optimized. What if a person goes directly to YouTube?
You want your titles and descriptions very tight; use proper descriptions, chapters, tags, and captions, and consider creating YouTube short videos.
All of the above techniques for YouTube make the content better and more in-depth. More in-depth and accurate content is easier for Google to use. Here’s what to do when trying to rank your YouTube videos on the YouTube platform:
- Start by crafting compelling titles and detailed descriptions that cover what your video addresses.
- Next, incorporate relevant keywords naturally into your title and description.
- Finally, use relevant video hashtags to support broader discovery when a user views something related.
Optimize your Website or Pages With Video.
Google prioritizes indexing content that matches search queries of what users want and where they expect it to be on the page.
Embedding videos higher on the page will get higher placement. Consider using an HTML block quote for the videos:
- Include a video transcript with descriptive information matching the video.
- Give the title and description.
Vimeo SEO also published their own case study video data with google.
Make sure if you go that far, you give instructions. Give a step-by-step walkthrough and explain when the viewer will see it in the content you write.
Linking Your Website and YouTube Channel:
There’s also basic common sense. You are creating content. Linking all the digital content properties together, such as embedding YouTube videos in web pages to promote traffic from Google to YouTube, also promotes cross-traffic from YouTube Search back to your website.
The other thing, just common sense, that site owners should consider is creating an engaging and descriptive YouTube video. You might easily put your video and not embed the videos, and a user would find your competitors because your videos aren’t ranking well by themselves on YouTube.
It also helps you with cross-linking YouTube to your blog or pages and also linking your blog or pages with links on YouTube back to your content.
Conclusion
Embedding a video just for the sake of adding videos won’t cut it. How you create the content, its relevance, and its location are crucial for the best results when answering, does embedding YouTube videos help SEO?
Ultimately, think, “User first, and user experience will make Google and search engines reward you.” When creating high-quality, optimized video content, embedded videos significantly impact improved search rankings, more content, and better Google positions when done correctly.
Hire an SEO agency like us at SEO Locale to take you to the next level, give us a call if you need help!
