August 3

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The Power of People Also Ask Boxes in Google Searches

By Jason Khoo

August 3, 2020


Transcript

Hi guys. And welcome to another edition of the Zupo SEO Talk & Tea. 

Today's conversation is about setting the record straight about video optimizing SEO. Video is a very important sector of marketing that is exponentially growing and therefore has become integral to a lot of people's marketing strategy. This is a video in itself. And so a lot of video as being discussed about why it's important and a lot of that bleeds into SEO. And so they're... A video and SEO are great tools for each other, but there are a lot of misconceptions that I do want to clear up on today's video. But today I want to introduce the tea we have first. Today we have the Magic Dragon tea. This is one of those teas that one of my housemates gifted to the household. And so this is from DAVIDsTEA. The Magic Dragon is very sweet. Let me read you the ingredients. Apple, rose hip, hibiscus, sweet blackberry leaves, dragon fruit, corn flour, [inaudible 00:00:53] pedals, and natural dragon fruit flavoring. And I don't know what natural dragon fruit flavor means, but it's a very sweet tea.

So let's go ahead and get brewing, get talking. So setting the record straight about video and SEO. One of the things about video and SEO, and this is important, is that video is the future. A lot of companies are investing heavily. More and more people are getting into video. Things like YouTube, TikTok are really... And smartphones are really allowing this accessibility into videos. And so there's a lot of literature out there about why videos are so good for SEO. But something that I want to really clarify is I've been through enough sales meetings and just meetings with people who have read on the internet that video is great for SEO. But there's some things I want to clarify. A lot of the benefits when it comes to video SEO, are not always as [inaudible 00:01:48] as people think they are. I like to think that they're a little bit more correlated.

So let me just talk about that then. So, I think the thought is... And this did not steep very long. So I think I'm going to pour that back in. A lot of people, I think they have this idea that, "Oh, this is a video on my site, Google likes that. So automatic raking bump." That is definitely not the case. And so there's things that I want to kind of clarify. Because I have dealt with videos before. I have dealt with companies who have predominantly too many videos on their site. Okay. Maybe not too many, but they have a lot. And there have been some consequences that they were unforeseen that appeared once we got onto the SEO account.

And so the first thing is I think the two stats I hear the most is... One is not even data backed. When people just say Google likes videos, so they're going to rank it higher, no, that's not the case. Two, is that video increases conversion rates and people's time on page, therefore helping their SEO. That's the true one. Video is much more interactive. When people see a video, they'll stay on your website longer and they will probably interact more. Hopefully they're clicking around and maybe they'll convert better. But something that I want to note is that time on page and if people are clicking around is a ranking factor, but not in the sense that people think. The main issue that comes to time on page is if someone's clicking on your site, on the Google search result, and clicking out within less than three seconds, two seconds, Google sees that as a ding that they probably were very happy there. Now, if they go onto your website and they like the video and they stay for a very long time, that does help.

But that is a very micro situation where you're already on the first page. And you're kind of battling for the first spot. If you are a website that does not rank on the first page and like you're on the fifth page of the Google and you have a video on your webpage, it's not like that video is going to take you to the first spot. Because your idea that, "Oh, well people are going to stay out here longer." Well, who's navigating to that page if you're on the fifth page of Google? So my thought process is when you're using video, it is more for a... if it close... If we're thinking about video and websites like ales process, it is the closer, not the inbound lead generation. So what I mean by that is your SEO needs to be good independent of the video because your SEO has to be so good that you can get on the first page. And the video will be an add on, where once you rank on the first page, people come to the site and they can convert.

But video is not to be confused as, "Oh, a video will be a part of me getting to the first page." That could be the case. Like you can have a video and that's fun. But what I want to make sure you understand is that it's not the video itself. It's the entire gamut of the experience or the whole totality of the experience. And what I have often found is people over hedge the video. They say, "Oh, I have a video. It looks great. We spent money and time on it. So therefore, we'll put the video on the site and we'll be good to go." At the end of the day, when you add a video on the site, it's just an embed. It's just an embed code from YouTube or Vimeo. You're just taking your code, putting it on your site. And it pops up.

I would say most people would need to put way more time on the actual webpage that they're trying to rank for and the site than the video. The video is whatever. You can use whatever video and put on there, that's fine. But really the text around the video is what matters the most. So let me give you another example, just kind of drive this home. I have a client who they... The site was predominantly a portfolio of videos and they had been in business for many years and the videos were amazing. These guys have some of the best videos you'll see, right? But they were not ranking well. And so when I got in there, I was tasked to help him with the SEO. And I told him, I said, "You have a site beautifully designed with videos, but you literally have zero actual text content."

So the entire SEO project was building out the video portfolios into an actually text oriented website. And just like that, they ranked on the first page of Google. It was not the videos themselves, it was the text content. For SEO, it is still very text content based and you need to optimize the amount of text content. It is not to say, videos are bad. You should still have videos. But don't think the videos will be your SEO strategy. Use that strategy for YouTube. Videos are YouTube strategy. SEO is a text based strategy. So therefore I want to clear up some misconceptions. If someone's trying to sell you a video and they say, it's going to help you with your SEO. Yes. I don't know. I guess. That's like someone telling you a car is a great investment. Like yes, a car drives you from point A to point B, but I don't know how much it is of a good investment in terms of making me money back for you.

So I digress. I think this is a whole philosophy of thought kind of thing. But as an SEO who worked in this every day, I've never bought a video for SEO purposes. A video is better for conversion purposes, which is more correlated. So it's not necessarily a lie, but you have to mind how much you're going to believe that. I have been in too many sales meetings where I have to smile through someone saying, "And you know Jason, videos really help your SEO and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Yes. But it's such a marginal improvement that that's not what really should be talked about. If you're trying to sell me on the value of whatever your service or product is for the SEO. There's many other things that are more impactful.

So hopefully I didn't talk your ear too much off. Yeah, I didn't go that long. And so hopefully you guys found that very valuable and you liked it. Hopefully that'll help you in the sales process if you're having to hear someone or you're evaluating different strategies. But I'm going to go ahead and pour out my tea. It does look better now. I just like to steep it a little bit longer. And hope to see you guys again soon. Thanks everybody.

Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.

Jason Khoo

About the author

Jason is founder and CEO of Zupo, which is an Orange County based SEO consulting agency helping construct powerful long term SEO strategies for our clients. Jason also enjoys multiple cups of tea a day, hiding away on weekends catching up on reading and rewatching The Simpsons for the 20th time.

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