If you’re not creating and leveraging video content to help educate and drive customer acquisition, I hate to say it, but you’re behind the times.
With changes in Google’s search results, where video snippets have become prevalent, leveraging video to own SERP real estate will only become more prevalent in the coming years.
The good news is that there’s still time, as most SaaS businesses still rely heavily on written content and do not create video content to syndicate across LinkedIn, YouTube, and other platforms.
This article will hone in on the importance of leveraging video content to own more SERP real estate and drive more right-fit eyeballs to your brand.
If you’re not yet sold on why videos are crucial from the SEO perspective, here’s a few great examples that should push you over the line and get you creating:
Zapier is, as always, a great example of a company that is on top of its SEO efforts, and video is no different case.
If you check Zapier’s playlists on YouTube, you’ll find a playlist titled “Connection Videos” where they currently, at the time of writing, have listed 2,915 total videos, with the top 10 videos amounting to over 130k total views:
Clicking into these videos, you’ll notice one thing that stands out:
Every single video is templated, and the only thing that changes in the video itself is the company logos in the video. That’s it.
Essentially, Zapier has done an extensive programmatic SEO exercise using one singular template, which likely took their video editing team a mear few hours to create.
This should come as no surprise, knowing their great success with hundreds of thousands of single and double integration pages that rank and drive tens of thousands of high-intent visitors to the domain each month.
Important Resource: Programmatic SEO for SaaS: Step-by-Step Implementation
You’ll see these videos appearing in Google’s search results for the various integrations they cover:
If you dig deeper, you’ll notice they’ve also created a playlist titled “How To Connect Zapier To to” which includes 170 total videos that have amounted 1000’s of views:
But why does this exact example stand out?
Because these videos are created around Zapier’s core conversion driving terms:
These pages are surely helping Zapier to drive conversions, as do their traditional landing pages for each single, double and triple integration that they support.
Example #2: Loomly’s competitor comparison videos
Here’s another great example – in this case, when it comes to competitor comparison vs. queries.
Video snippets are becoming more prevalent for these queries as well, as in the example below for Loomly:
Notice how Loomly is outranked here compared to the 3 other results that showcase a competitor’s product, which is against theirs.
Creating competitor comparison videos (alongside an actual competitor comparison page) is a great strategy for comparing yourself against other products and showcasing who and exactly in which scenarios your solution is the best fit.
Important Resource: SaaS Competitor Comparison Landing Page Setup Guide
Don’t underestimate the number of potential buyers researching your product on YouTube in video format—this is only going to become more common as more videos pop up around “alternatives” and “vs.” queries.
As with all things Google, this is laid out directly within Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
But we’ll go through step-by-step what works to get videos to appear in Google’s search results:
Important Resource: Google Webmaster Guidelines: Video SEO best practices
To get your video to show up on Google, it must cover topics people seek.
If no one is searching for your topic, your video will not get views.
The last one is especially important.
If video SERPs are showing for your target topic/query, you know it’s now possible to rank a video there.
If not, that doesn’t mean it’s not possible, it’s just less likely that you’ll get a video snippet.
This shows people are eager to watch videos on those subjects.
You can find these topics using Ahrefs, and other tools for example:
site:youtube.com inurl:watch title:topic. Sort based on search traffic to find top-performing videos.Review traffic trends over several months before making a video on a specific topic to ensure consistency.
Creating a video that people love involves placing yourself in search results for important features.
Aim to get into “suggested clips,” as these can lead viewers to your video.
Correct captions are essential since auto-generated ones often have errors.
Adding accurate captions can improve your video’s visibility on search engines. Captions help search engines grasp the content, and they boost viewer engagement by making your video accessible to a larger audience.
Correct your captions manually, especially if you have a script. This small effort can positively impact your search rankings and user interaction.
Your video’s thumbnail needs to grab attention to make people click on your video.
Avoid dull or unrelated images. Here’s how to make engaging thumbnails:
Creating compelling thumbnails will tempt viewers to click, giving your video more chances to be seen.
Adding specific time markers within your video helps your audience find exactly what they need.
This improves the user experience, potentially increasing the likelihood of people sharing or watching your video in its entirety, thus boosting its performance in search results.
Incorporate clear, descriptive timestamps that outline the main sections or steps in your video. This could look like:
This organization makes it easier for viewers to navigate and can enhance their overall engagement with your content.
We’ve found a strong correlation to appearing in Google’s video snippets if we embed the video on the relevant content page/article on a domain.
We generally have a video about every topic we do – meaning we then embed it in the article for users on-site who would prefer to watch the video:
By embedding relevant videos on your top-performing pages, you take advantage of Google’s search capabilities.
Google often includes pages with embedded videos in its “Videos” tab, alongside YouTube results. This means anyone clicking on the result will be directed to your site rather than a video platform.
To find these top-performing pages, you can use Google Search Console’s “Search Results” report by sorting pages by their click rates.
Alternatively, if you opt for a different tool, entering your domain in the “Top Pages” report in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer will also display pages with the highest traffic.
Look for a video that matches the content of the page, and integrate it where it naturally fits.
Let’s say you have a page receiving substantial search visits each month but lacks an embedded video. Adding a video covering a related topic can help your page appear in the “Videos” tab of Google. This strategy has been shown to increase clicks over time, tapping into additional sources of website visitors.
For pages with embedded videos, schema markup can signal Google to display them in enriched formats called video-rich results.
While Google specifies that VideoObject properties are necessary for eligibility, sometimes embedded YouTube videos manage to achieve rich results even without it. Still, adding the correct schema markup is advised.
If your site hosts its own videos, Google requires this markup to consider your videos for such results.
Using platforms like WordPress makes adding schema simple with plugins like Schema & Structured Data. Here’s a brief guide:
Essential fields include Name, Description, Upload Date, and Thumbnail URL.
You also have the option to fill out additional attributes like duration, improving both relevance and usefulness.
Verify successful setup through Google’s Structured Data Testing tool, ensuring all markup is correctly implemented.
Incorporating a transcript of the video can be beneficial on pages with little text content where you plan to embed videos.
This practice is utilized effectively by websites like Moz, who integrate transcripts into their video pages.
Visitors who prefer reading can benefit from this, and search engines often favor diverse content forms.
Instead of directly copying the video transcript, transform it into a readable blog post format with clear headings and images.
This not only improves visitor experience but also accommodates different user preferences, enhancing the overall reach and engagement of your content.
To stay competitive, leveraging video content is no longer optional—it’s essential.
Videos not only help dominate SERP real estate but also engage audiences and drive conversions in ways written content cannot.
SaaS orgs can tap into the growing dominance of video in search results by employing strategies like embedding videos on high-performing pages, optimizing SEO elements, and creating topic-focused, engaging content.
Founder of Rock The Rankings, an SEO partner that helps B2B SaaS brands crush their organic growth goals. An avid fan of tennis, and growing micro-SaaS businesses on the weekend. 2x SaaS Co-Founder – Currently working to build and scale Simple Testimonial.
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