Can a Video Podcast Help SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) remains an important tool in the dynamic digital marketing world in enhancing online presence and drawing traffic. The video podcast is one of the most effective tools that can be used to enhance SEO but that is usually not utilized. As it became popular, a question was raised by many businesses and content creators: Can a video podcast help SEO? The answer is a resounding yes. In this article, we will see how you can incorporate video podcasting in your content strategy to boost your SEO activities and rank higher on search engines.
What is a Video Podcast?
Now, before we proceed to discuss the way video podcasts can influence SEO, we should define what a video podcast is. A video podcast is basically a podcast with some visual content in addition to audio. It is a form of content which is usually based on interviews, discussions, or single commentary, but additionally includes the visual component in the form of graphics, slides, or video material.
Whereas audio podcasts are usually available on such platforms as Spotify or Apple Podcasts, video podcasts can be shared on video-sharing platforms, such as YouTube, Vimeo, or even on social media, such as Instagram or Facebook. Video podcasts are the combination of the two worlds which is interesting audio and interesting visual storytelling.
How Video Podcasts Impact SEO
Video podcasts can be a game-changer for SEO. So how can they assist you in getting your site listed higher in the search engines and increasing your online presence?
Let us examine the various ways in which they can assist you:
Increased Engagement and User Experience
Search engines such as Google are increasingly using user experience to rank the websites. The time on page, bounce rate, and user interaction are some of the metrics that affect SEO performance. Video podcasts are a great way of increasing traffic on your site or YouTube channel.
Why It Works: Visitors spend more time on the pages that contain video content, since they can spend more time consuming the content. This is a good ranking signal to Google since it means that your content is valuable to visitors.
How to Use it: With the help of video podcasts placed on your site or having a special page with them, you make people spend more time on it. This enhances your general site interaction and conveys good messages to the search engines.
Boosted Visibility on YouTube
YouTube is the second search engine in the world, after Google. Actually, YouTube is frequently used by Google to retrieve video results for some search requests. YouTube can be a good resource to have a well-optimized video podcast so your content will rank higher in the search results, and the likelihood of organic traffic will rise.
Why It Works: You can optimize a video podcast by including keywords in the title, description and tags when you upload it to YouTube. This will help both the algorithm of YouTube and Google to know what your video is about, raising your possibility of being found in related search results.
How to Leverage It: Make sure that your video podcast has well-researched keywords in the title, description and even in your video transcript (which can be automatically generated by YouTube). Additionally, have a call to action (CTA) that invites the audience to check your site or subscribe to your podcast.
Enhanced Content Variety and Rich Snippets
Adding video podcasts to your content strategy will add diversity, which is crucial in user engagement and SEO. The websites that have a variety of content types, such as video, are more likely to create rich snippets, which are small pieces of content that appear in the search engine results.
Why It Works: When Google finds that a video is relevant to a search that a user is undertaking, then it might show a rich snippet in the search results, which has the thumbnail of the video, a short description, and a link to the video. This will help your content to shine in search engine results pages (SERPs), and this can bring more clicks.
How to Use It: Use your video content to rich snippets by using structured data (Schema Markup) on your site. This will assist Google to identify your video podcast and show it as a rich snippet in SERPs.
Transcriptions and SEO Keywords
One of the greatest advantages of video podcasts in terms of SEO is the possibility to transcribe the audio. Video podcasts usually have a lot of useful information in them and by converting these into text you will have another source of content which the search engines will be able to crawl and index.
Why It Works: Search engines can not watch a video but can read a transcript. When you offer a transcript of your video podcast on your site, you generate an excellent SEO-friendly text-based content. Having the relevant keywords in the transcript will enhance the likelihood of your content to be included in relevant searches.
How to Make Use of It: You can use transcription services or software to convert your podcast into text and put up the transcription on your webpage. Add the keywords into the text in a natural way to enhance the ranking of the keywords.
Social Media Amplification
Video podcasts are easily shared on several platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Signals in social media, including likes, shares, and comments, are also relevant to SEO since they show social evidence and relevance of the content.
Why It Works: Your video podcast can create backlinks to your site when shared in social media, which enhances the authority of your site. Direct traffic to your content can also be achieved through social sharing, thus raising awareness and involvement.
How to use It: Advertise your video podcast in different social networks. Make followers share and comment on the content. It is also possible to reuse video podcast clips and turn them into small shareable bits to gain more attention.
Bill Yeager, Co-Owner of High Point SEO & Marketing in CT
