What’s the one thing that frustrates SEOs more than building authority links through cold emailing?
It’s creating videos to acquire links!
Don’t believe me? Try imagining yourself speaking in front of a camera and producing content that hundreds and thousands of people might watch. The thought is a little scary.
I talked to many people in the SEO industry, and most of them either thought they lacked confidence or creating videos for the sake of building links is “too extreme.”
And when given a choice between creating a video to get links vs. spending vast amounts of money on writing content, doing outreach, etc. they almost always preferred the latter.
But…if you’re not planning to use videos in 2020, you’re ignoring one of the quickest (and easiest) ways of getting links. And the best part is that anyone can succeed with videos even if they’re camera shy!
In this guide, I’ll tell you five reasons why videos get more links and how you can create them easily for maximum reach.
5 Reasons to Create Videos for Link Building
1. Easier to snatch featured snippets
Stealing featured snippets from competitors is very popular these days, and both veteran and newbie SEOs are looking for ways to up their game.
While word on IM forums is that short, punchy Q&A sections on blog posts are likely to rank, did you know that videos can appear as snippets in the SERPS? Yes, using video markup for a video on your webpage, you can essentially steal your competitors’ spot.
Why featured snippets?
Featured snippets rose in popularity because they provide quick answers to peoples’ questions. You don’t have to enter a website, read through walls of text, or watch an entire video to get what you’re looking for.
Research by HubSpot has shown that content that ranks for featured snippets gets 2x more clickthrough rate. For marketers, this could mean an excellent opportunity to boost traffic and increase conversions.
Moreover, if your video ranks as a featured snippet, it’s more likely to get picked up by journalists and webmasters after seeing it ranked first on Google. After all, they’re looking to cite the most trusted source, and what better source can there be than the source at #1?
What type of pages ranks for video snippets?
There are two types of pages you can create to mark up the content so that videos show up in the search results– recipe pages and how-to articles.
a) Recipe pages: to present a step-by-step process of your cooking, make use of Google’s structured data to present a video snippet. When you offer information such as nutrition guides, preparation time, etc. Google understands the content better and makes it rank.
b) How-to/tutorial pages: When it comes to hands-on advice, videos work way better than text. That’s why you should be using video markup on a page so that the visual material that supports the How-to text gets more love. Read more about it here.
Few ways to start:
- Here are a few ways you can make videos appear in the snippet:
- Add schema markup to your pages HTML code
- Use JSON code after the page title
- Make use of Google’s Structured Data Markup tool
- Use Google Search Console to check for errors or warnings for schema markup executions
To learn about the methods mentioned above in detail, I highly recommend you read this 2020 guide by Elfsight.
2. Acquiring natural links via YouTube
Getting natural links via YouTube is one of the easiest things to do IF you bring something new to the table.
I can’t even begin to state how much SEOs understate the power of ranking and banking on YouTube, all because they never bothered to find out.
Google is great, sure, but YouTube (despite being owned by Google now) is a whole different world, with a completely different search engine.
And unlike Google, YouTube does NOT require you to go heavy on building links just to get noticed. If you’re planning to create videos, then do it by keeping YouTube users in mind. And if you’re still wondering, “Why YouTube?” let me tell you why.
Why publish on YouTube?
These stats were published by Cisco and other reliable sources after extensive studies:
- Over 1.9 billion people are logged in to YouTube every month
- Each day, people around the world collectively consume over 1 billion hours of video content
- YouTube is now in more than 100 countries and hosts content produced over 80 languages
- Internet video to TV output was anticipated to rise by three times from 2017 to 2022
- Live internet video will account for 17% of total traffic by 2022
How can you get links?
The math is simple. Since YouTube has a huge global audience and its search algorithm is vastly different from Google’s, every creator stands a good chance of grabbing eyeballs regardless of their “authority.”
A small-time SEO producing videos with unique, innovative perspectives on the industry has a chance of blowing up and competing with the likes of Brian Dean and Neil Patel. This is next to impossible in Google SERPS because those players built up their site authority for years!
And once your video gets more exposure, the more it is likely to get a link (on both YouTube and your site) from someone who really enjoyed watching it.
Besides, publishing content on YouTube is a great way to build up an audience because your subscribers will return to watch other videos.
3. Videos= New infographics for skyscraper outreach
Using videos, you can do a better job at skyscraper outreach rather than using infographics. Don’t get me wrong; I love infographics and all its potential benefits, but they’re kind of being overused right now for all the wrong reasons.
“Hi, we published an excellent infographic on our site, which we think would fit perfectly on post XYZ on your site. Would you mind giving us a backlink in return?” How many of these pitches have you gotten before? For me, it’s been way too many.
Instead of creating an infographic on ‘53 New Ways to Tie Your Shoe,’ make a video on it. I’m sure it’ll be more useful and entertaining for your audience, and while doing outreach, you’ll have a better pitch for the webmasters.
Just host the video on your website, and ask for a link back to the page if the webmaster likes the content and would like to share it. That’s all there is to it, really.
4. Getting video pins on Pinterest
You know what’s the one link building strategy that all the cool SEO’s are using that others are not? Yep, it’s getting links by harnessing the power of Pinterest!
Video pins have been gaining an enormous amount of popularity, and to get the most of your video content, pinning is the way to go! With some creativity, you can use content from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and your website to drive traffic from Pinterest.
What’s so special about Pinterest?
As of now, Pinterest has close to 1 billion users, with 45.58% of them being from the US. So, if you’re not utilizing Pinterest now, you’re leaving money on the table- plain and simple.
With such a considerable portion of the traffic coming from a tier-1 country, you’re bound to get more advertising dollars when people share and repin your content.
However, since the Pinterest community is more geared towards health, food, arts & crafts, etc. make sure your content aligns with those fields. “But where and how does the equation of getting links come in?”
Well, since there are a lot of solo bloggers and authority sites using Pinterest, you’ll have a higher chance to attract more natural links once your video pins get more popular. It’s a game of numbers, and Pinterest can tip the odds in your favor.
How to create video pins
You can pin videos from many popular platforms; however, today, I’m going to talk about pinning videos from your website. As a result, you’ll get direct traffic from the pin, back to your site.
The section mentioned below has been taken from socialmediaexaminer.com because they did a great job of outlining the steps. You can either follow the steps from here or check out the entire blog post by clicking on the link here.
5. Increase credibility by putting a face/voice behind your brand
To build up real credibility, you must seriously consider putting a face or voice behind your brand. Truth be told, link building is hard now, and it isn’t going to get easier because the competition is increasing in leaps and bounds.
Very few people want to be associated with unknown names at a time like this, so getting links to a website that has no brand presence will be hard. A lot of people I know tried doing the exact thing for years and got very little in return.
I honestly believe that today, investing money into creating brandable assets such as videos is a better approach rather than spamming people through cold emailing.
Authenticity is what matters more now and according to a 2019 survey by Stackla, 90% of consumers said that authenticity plays the most crucial role in deciding which brand they like and support.
That way, you’re more likely to get links naturally because webmasters actually enjoy your content and want to share it with their audience. And even if you choose to reach out asking for links, you’ll have more chances of making a good impression with a video.
How to make your videos 10x more attractive (and useful!)
These are a few ways you can use videos to build up your brand image:
- Create a home studio using some decent camera, voice recorder, background, and lights
- Commit to creating and posting new content at least once a week
- Develop a video production workflow that’s sustainable
- Start each video with a hook that grabs the viewer’s attention
- Keep titles and intros short- nobody cares about us as much as we think they do
- Create catchy thumbnails that people want to click on
- Repurpose full-length videos into bite-sized chunks to post on FB, Instagram, etc.
- Add an animated intro video for greater brand recall
Those are some of the points I can mention from the top of my head, you’ll find more resources by doing a quick Google search.
“But what if I don’t want to appear in front of the camera?”
That’s completely alright if you don’t; even I am camera shy and have a not-so-great voice (I think). What you can do is create content by outsourcing to the talents at freelancing sites like Fiverr and Upwork. It won’t cost you an arm and a leg either if you shop around a bit.
To create infographics style, explainer videos, all you’re going to need is a team consisting of a video editor, a voice artist, and a scriptwriter. You can write the script if you’re okay with that.
And that’s pretty much it.
Final words
When it comes to doing outreach for link building- using videos or not, you should be using all the tools at your disposal.
Using videos as a part of an outreach campaign has done wonders for many, and I’m sure they’ll help you, too, if you do it the right way.
Whether you’re an affiliate marketer working for yourself or an agency owner who wants to get better results for clients, I can assure you that the tips mentioned here will help immensely.