Guest post by Ryan O’Loughlin
Do you read every single blog post you come across? Of course not. It’s human nature to want to take shortcuts, especially when there’s too much information online.
With millions of blogs out there, it’s easy for a visitor to bounce off of your site and go on to the next one. In fact, a Compuware study found that if it takes a webpage just 3 seconds to load, 40% of visitors will abandon that page. This post is not about increasing site speed, but it is harder than ever to keep your visitors happy and it is also harder than ever to keep them on your site.
But here’s the good news: One thing the vast majority of bloggers ignore is using video on their blog. Using video on your blog has numerous benefits:
Video attracts visitors
Of course most people have no problem reading text on blogs, but sometimes it’s nice to take a break and watch a video instead. Visitors don’t have to think as much, and it’s a nice change of pace for them. If you had the choice between reading a 50 page PDF or watching a video for 10 minutes with the exact same information, which one would you choose?
If your visitors land on your blog and only see intimidating blocks of text, they are likely to bounce. However, if they see a variety of pictures and videos mixed in with the text, then they might stick around a little longer. Variety is the spice of life, so providing your visitors with different mediums of information is definitely a good thing.
SEO benefit: Video lowers the bounce rate on your site
For analytic purposes, Google records how long each visitor stays on your site. The theory is that the longer people stay on your site, the more valuable your information is, and thus your search engine rankings will improve. If your site had crap content, people would leave right away and this would signal to Google that your site was garbage.
So, how to get visitors to stay one your site longer? Viola! Use videos. The visitors stay on the page longer to watch the video, which drives up the average amount of time people stay on your site. This is one of the easiest and most-overlooked SEO benefits of video.
Video is great for both visitors and search engines
As I already mentioned, having a variety of different ways to give content to your visitors is great because not everyone learns the same way. If people like reading, they can read your posts. If people are more visual learners, they will enjoy watching the videos or looking at pictures on your site. Google also sees a site as more “valuable” if it has more than just text on the site.
Making and uploading videos onto your site is easier than ever
Years ago, you would have to have a fancy camera and some fancy computer program to upload videos to your site. Today, you can use your smart phone and upload it onto YouTube for free. You can reach more people than ever.
And an important distinction is that the content, more than the video delivery, matters. For example, this video of a guy going out of his way to get rejected has over 5 million views, even though the camera orientation is terrible:
It’s also easier for you
It takes a long time to craft a good blog post. So mix it up once-in-a-while and make videos, because it’s easier to say something than to type something. Of course, this assumes everything goes well– sometimes there are technical difficulties with videos, but once you iron them out, it’s smooth sailing.
Conclusion
I recommend to start adding videos to your site because it benefits both people and search engines. People love watching videos from time to time. So videos will not only add a little variety to your site, but they will also keep visitors on your site longer, which is good for your SEO. There are no excuses.
You can upload a video yourself or embed one from YouTube. So here is my challenge: on your next blog post, put up an appropriate video and watch the bounce rate go down and the time spent on your site go up.
About the Author: Ryan O’Loughlin never bought into the “Get a good job” lifestyle. He currently teaches English in South Korea, and blogs about alternatives to the 9-5 lifestyle at his blog, www.realworldmyth.com.
