How Video Can Help Your SEO

One of the key metrics used by search engines, and notably Google, to rank your web pages is a term called “Dwell Time.” Dwell time indicates how long on average a page visit lasts before your visitor clicks back to the search results.

While it’s not a definitive metric – someone could come to your site and get a great answer to something in a couple of seconds – dwell time does provide a significant response to the question “Is your content relevant to the search query?”

Chances are anyone landing on your website after a Google search will stay on the site and read your content if the content is relevant and informative. In Google’s eyes, the longer someone stays on your website, the more engaged they are with your content, the more relevant your content is.

The higher your dwell time is, the better off your page rankings will eventually be.

So how do you get people to stay on your web pages for longer?

The answer to that one is better and more relevant content.

That’s where a video starts to make sense. Include a 3-minute video on your page, for example, and if the content is good, your visitors will watch it through to the end. Result? Three minutes dwell time. Job done, excellent.

While technically it will still count as a bounce (visitor views one page on your site then clicks out), the high dwell time will tell Google that your content was relevant and engaging enough for someone to spend three minutes reading it, or in this case, watching it.

Google doesn’t care about what type of content your visitors are engaging with. They see a high dwell time, and that tells them that your visitor got a lot of value from your content. If lots of people also spend a lot of time on your page, Google will reward you with a ranking boost.

We already know that Bing does factor dwell time in their ranking algorithms. While Google has never publicly admitted that dwell time plays a part in their ranking algorithms, there is enough evidence to support the idea that they do. Their RankBrain signal certainly does. RankBrain is acknowledged as one of the main ranking signals, so it follows that dwell time counts to your rankings.

One of the downsides here is that not everyone can create highly engaging and relevant content that will command a high dwell time. Fortunately, we’re not one of those people!

If you’re serious about your SEO and search engine rankings, you need to keep people on your pages for longer. How do you do that? Our customized news streams are the ideal place to start. Proven to engage your visitors and drive more conversions, our news stream videos can improve your dwell time and rankings.

Get in touch and see how we can help you add video to your brand. We offer a 30-day no contract, no-obligation Free Trial, so there really is nothing to lose.