Why Your Small Business Needs YouTube

There are plenty of tips out there on how to get minor leaps and gains in your Google ranking. But most of the time, video content is treated as secondary or special. The fact is, most companies aren’t engaging with video content in a meaningful way. Even if you don’t have a product or service that is going to get a ton of individual views, creating video content can help you increase your rankings and can open up additional options for your digital strategy.

Utilizing YouTube Video Descriptions for Small Businesses

Let’s get it out of the way immediately: yes, links in the descriptions of YouTube videos are automatically “nofollowed” by YouTube. However, linking and keyword association in your YouTube videos does pass on some form of value to your site. Specifically, it seems that description-based tactics on YouTube have value for local search. It may only move the needle a tiny bit for your PageRank, but can do wonders for your local SEO. Even if the links pass no juice, you can also benefit from having an accurate NAP (name/address/phone) listing on your YouTube video. Google will still crawl the video description, and having a matching NAP will increase Google’s trust in your company. The more Google trusts you, the better your business will perform in local searches.

Location Tagged Videos

There are some options that only become available to you when you move outside of traditional text-based SEO. For example: you can geotag your video in YouTube’s video manager. Doing this is simple. When you’re in the video manager and have your desired video selected, simply click on the “Advanced settings” tab underneath the video. You can then add a “video location” field by entering an address in the box and searching. The full extent of geotagging’s power is not known. At one point, these videos had integration with Google Maps. That is no longer the case. However, you can still link your video to your Google Business page, which lends it authority. Plus, geotagging is known to affect local search results, so the more geotagged items you can associate with your brand and site, the better.

Small Business Video Ideas

You could get away with just slapping a DRM-free music track on a slideshow of images from your company website and calling it a day. After all, the main purpose of this article has been focused around using YouTube to increase your local search presence. However, if you’re going to go through the effort of having a video presence, you might as well make the content engaging and potentially helpful for your company. You’re already optimizing and tagging your video – a little effort into the video itself can result in leads or conversions. The easiest video to do is customer testimonials. If you have customers who love your company and would be willing to go on the record for you, simply grab a cell phone, put them in a quiet room, and start shooting. Let them explain their story and how your business helped them. Then upload to YouTube, throw some titles on it using the YouTube Editor, and you’re set. If people are already searching for a professional in your industry and they stumble upon the testimonial, it could convert potential customers better than a short slideshow. There are plenty of unique and outside-the-box ways to leverage YouTube for your business in a way that will not only increase your search presence, but open up unique conversion opportunities. You know your industry better than anyone, and that kind of “subject matter expert” content can open up a whole new avenue for your digital marketing strategy.

Tags: Digital Marketing • Search Engine Optimization • Strategy & Consulting