Did you know that online users are more likely to interact with videos than they are with text?

Many users would much rather watch a minute-long video rather than take the same amount of time to read text. Videos give online users a much better view of products and services that they may be interested in. They also have the ability to make a lasting impression.

Direct Traffic to your Site

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Hundreds of hours of video are being uploaded to the site every second and users are ready to watch. As a result, YouTube videos have gotten billions of views. The viewing numbers have been continually rising as YouTube has gotten more popular and don’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. More than half of YouTube’s views are coming from mobile devices too.

While sharing the video won’t lead to direct links to your website, you can create two backlinks from YouTube. You can include a link to your website on your YouTube profile and include a link in the description of each video.

Rank for Valuable Keywords

Having a high-quality YouTube video that hits on key terms can be an effective way to get your content to the top of Google’s pages as well. Google understands that many users prefer interacting with video content. The search engine results pages reflect this and make it easy for users to find videos that are relevant to their searches. This means video listings have been bumped up towards the top of the first page and provide an excellent opportunity.

There are a number of different factors that will go into how your YouTube video will rise on the results page. Ranking highly in a YouTube search is heavily dependent on user engagement. Ensuring that you have quality content that users will watch in its entirety on your channel is a must. Boston Web Group has experience creating engaging videos for clients in a number of different industries. Keyword relevance, number of channel subscribers, user reactions and video length also go into how well a video will rank on YouTube.

Having a video that ranks highly in a YouTube search for a key term can be a great way to make an impact. Video gives you the chance to tell the story of your brand while giving them an awesome view of the products you offer. YouTube videos are also very easily shared and stand to give your brand a boost if posted at the right time. Posting videos regularly can be a great way to build a loyal social media following and attract valuable returning customers to your business.

Video Integration

Video is evidence of quality content. Integrating video on your website means that you have mixed media content: text, images and video. The presence of video sends signals to search engines that your page contains rich media relevant to search requests. This means, your website will now show up in more related searches. It will also show up in searches when someone searches for only video results.

Optimizing your video will help your website in Google searches. The biggest thing to optimize is loading time. Google considers page performance in it’s algorithms to rank websites in the search results. Having a video that loads fast will boost your rank. According to Radware, 57% of mobile users ditch a site after three seconds of waiting. Posting videos can be a great way to boost SEO and engage users, as long as it’s optimized for user experience.

Boston Web Group Video Production

SEO is centric to every website that we build. We optimize all content for Search Engine value — and we know that video is an important component to that. Our video production team has created all types of videos: corporate, restaurant, personal lifestyle, tech, event coverage and more. We’ve even done some “reality TV” style content for our clients! As creative marketers, video production is something we love doing.

To learn more about this process, visit our website or give us a call!

Take your business or product to the next level with a video.

 

Content is everything. You are using content without even knowing it. It is in everything we do – social media posts, emails, product descriptions and more. That’s all content. The use of this content to help meet a marketing goal is called Content Marketing.

Content Marketing IS right for your business, no matter what your business is. You’re already doing it to some extent, so expanding and upgrading your efforts will definitely pay off.

Content Marketing brings:

• Strong Brand Awareness:

Content communicates a message to your audience. Whether you are selling a product or writing a travel blog, you are relying a message to your buyers or readers. The more content you have, the more times you are reaching your audience. The more your audience hears from you, the more they know about you and recognize you. This can spark conversation. They could mention to their peer an article they saw on your website and now that peer is checking out your website.

• Respect in the industry:

Along with brand awareness, your audience will grow to trust you. The more you show your knowledge to your audience, they will keep coming back because they know your website is reputable. This authority transfers to any products or services you sell — making customers more likely to choose you over the competition.

• Site traffic:

Creating content will bring people to your website — that’s an obvious. The more content you create, the higher chances you have to be seen and clicked on. When you generate traffic to your website, you’re allowing someone to find more information about your company or business.

• Improved SEO:

SEO wouldn’t be a thing without content. Search Engines use robots to crawl through your website and content. They find information about your site and decide whether it’s important and legitimate. The more content you have, the more crawling a robot needs to do (which is a good thing). The more times you link to your website, the more search engines know you are an active site. Both of these lead to better SEO standings because you prove to the search engine robots that your site is reputable.

• Customer conversions:

Whether or not your content even mentions a product you’re selling, you could generate conversions. Potential customers who are interested in your content are connecting with you and will likely make a purchase in the future.

In order to expand and upgrade your efforts, think about the quality of the content you’re already putting out. Is it your best product description? Is it convincing? Did you use keywords? When you write content in the future, consider these things. Also think about your audience — who are you targeting? Is it timely? Yes, having more content is better, but having quality content is what brings people back. Content comes in lots of forms: blog posts, landing pages, social media, descriptions, etc.

Content marketing takes time. You will slowly build up your brand and results will come, but they won’t happen over night. Don’t give up!

We’re here if you need help with content. We provide different SEO packages that include content marketing. Contact us today to discuss your options!      

Social Media Optimization, or SMO, is the use of techniques and strategies to promote a brand on social media in ways that help drive customer engagement. Social media has become one of the best assets for improving a company’s organic (non-paid) search results and utilizing SMO greatly increases these results. If you are looking to drive business from your social media accounts, simply having the accounts is not enough. This is where SMO comes in. SMO can enhance your company’s online presence and reputation, strengthen the brand, boost visibility and generate leads. Social media includes more than just Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: it is also includes other outlets like Pinterest, Google+ and blogs.

How will SMO help my brand’s social content achieve more?

1. Post at optimal times: Knowing when to post content is they key to getting more likes, favorites, shares and more engagement on any social network. When you post at optimal times, that means you are posting when the most users can be expected to engage with your content. Research shows there are optimal times to post for each different social network. The best times to post will vary by industry and change with relevant news regarding industry trends. Read more about that here.
2. Include links: Your website should always include links to your social media pages, and those social media pages should always link back to the website. Social media content can include links to your homepage, blog or other specific pages that you want visitors to go to. Including a link to your homepage in the bio of your social profile helps visitors easily access your website. A link should also be included (especially on blogs) to give readers the ability to share your content, allowing you to reach a wider audience.
3. Engagement drives engagement: Practice what you preach! You want people to follow you? Follow others. You want people to like your posts? Like other posts. It’s simple. When you are engaging with your audience, they are more likely to notice your profile and reciprocate. The more engaged you are with your audience and other social media users, the more your profile will stand out.
4. Post compelling content: The content you post should not only be relevant to your business, but also to your customers. Know your audience and post content that they will have the desire to read and engage with. Posting “call to action” content is one way to drive engagement. Call to action means you are asking your audience to do something. It can be as simple as writing a question in your caption and asking them to comment with their answer or more complex like asking them to click a link to go to your website and fill out a form. Viewers are more likely to do what you ask if you have the instructions written out, rather than if you have no call to action.
5. Keywords and hashtags: It is important to use keywords and hashtags to your improve your exposure. Hashtags categorize social content. They allow you to connect with and engage other users based on a common interest. When you use hashtags, you want to be specific. The more specific you are, the more you are targeting a certain audience. Using relevant keywords in your blog or social media posts is also important because search engines pick up on those.

  Using SMO helps customers build familiarity and trust with your brand. It also helps drive more traffic to your website, which can ultimately increase brand awareness and sales. You can point your customers where you want them to go by sharing different links with calls to action. In order to improve your SMO, follow the points above. Focus on engaging with your social audience by contributing to conversations, liking posts and having a presence. All of this can be done organically, without having to reach for your wallet. Consistency is key when dealing with SMO. Keep up with it and you will see results. If you want to see results faster, you should consider paid options like paid campaigns or Pay Per Click. SMO is also connected with Search Engine Optimization. As stated earlier, SMO contributes to improving your search results. To learn more about SEO, click here. Together, the results from these organic efforts will help grow your business.

Did you know that 85% of internet users will use a search engine first when looking for products or services? And 95% of those users don’t look past the first three search results pages. This is why you want your business to be on the first page — and even better — on top! It’s possible to be on the front page of a search engine like Google. There’s two ways to get there: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC). SEO is done organically, takes longer to see results but is longer lasting; PPC is a paid advertisement and results are seen immediately, but can disappear when the promotion ends.  

SEO	PPC
Organic, natural	Contrived
Long lasting	Lasts as long as budget
Appears slowly over time	Appears immediately
Requires a length of time for effect	Can be as short as one day and still effect

  Let’s talk about some other key differences. These include position, results and price.

Position:

SEO and PPC cause your website to land in different position on search engine result pages. Search results effected by SEO will show up in the main body of the results page. The better the webpage is optimized for SEO, the higher it will be in the rankings. SEO results can include all webpages that the search engine thinks is relatable. On the other hand, PPC listings are displayed on the top of the results page as “sponsored links.” PPC targets a certain audience based on different categories specified when building the ad.

Results:

With an SEO campaign, it may take several months for a website to show higher up in search results. However, this means that there can be continuous traffic over a longer period of time. PPC campaigns show immediately, which can result in an immediate boost in traffic. However, once the campaign is stopped and the budget is removed, the search result is removed.

Price:

For SEO campaigns, there are no associated costs. These are done organically. The only costs you’d incur are if you hired an agency or an employee to do it for you. For PPC, there is an ongoing price per click. You can set this price when building the ad. The greater your budget, the more traffic you will receive. You don’t pay anything to show the ad, you only pay whenever someone clicks your link. Both campaigns can be a great way to build your business.