This is actually an update to a post I did last month about How Web Video Improves Search Results. A month later I have discovered some additional information and come to some more conclusions as a result of it. The details are below, but those who don’t want do wallow through all the text I will get to the point. In 7 months a YouTube video optimized for the keyword phrase “fiber audit” has gone from obscurity to the top of the first page of Google’s SERPs while the corresponding website landing page has actually fallen off the first page. How can this happen? Let’s find out.
First of all let’s look at the results as of today. If you do a search for “fiber audit” in Google you will see in position #1 is a YouTube video for CCI Systems. That’s nice. What’s not so nice is that the link to the CCI Systems website is not anywhere on this page. That ends up being near the top of page 2. A month ago that link was at the bottom of page 1 and the video was at position #2. Today the web video has claimed the top spot while the website has fallen off the first page.
RESULT: Winner of round 1 is the YouTube video.
Below is a screenshot of Google SERP page 1 for “fiber audit”.
Now if you search for “fiber audits” instead of “fiber audit” then CCI Systems will get the top position and the YouTube video will be at position #3. A month ago CCI Systems claimed the 2nd spot and the YouTube video was at #5. They both improved.
RESULT: The winner of round 2 is a draw. They both rank at or near the top of the SERP page, but the thumbnail of the video certainly gives it a fighting chance to be the first one clicked.
In this particular situation it looks like the YouTube video gets the overall victory. For one search phrase it blows away the website. For the other phrase it’s still in the top 3. That seems to say that a web video on YouTube can give you more opportunities to rank highly in the Google SERPs than a website can. Why is that?
In this situation what appears to be happening is that there is higher competition for the phrase “fiber audit” than for “fiber audits”, but because there is little or no competition for a video with either of those phrases it ranks at or near the top in both searches. Sounds like a win win doesn’t it.
This a great example of how web video often ranks better than websites for a targeted search term. Keep that in mind the next time you want to target a specific keyword phrase and direct traffic to your website.
Contact us today to get your business started on a targeted web video campaign that can reach the audience you need.