The Role of Video Content in Boosting Local SEO and Visibility

Today, 91% of businesses use video content—nearly a 50% increase since 2016. So, if your local business isn't using video in your marketing strategies, you're amongst a small minority, and this already gives your competitors a lot of ground. But most of those 91% of businesses are using video intermittently, rarely, or even ineffectively. Companies need to always stay on their toes to optimize their video marketing strategies, whether your focus is TikTok and social media management or SEO optimization on a local scale. In fact, while most businesses use video to some degree, it's much less common to use it as part of a concentrated local SEO strategy.

Use this quick overview to see what advantages this approach can give your company, and learn five actionable ways to boost your local visibility through more engaging videos in your content marketing strategy.

The Benefits of Prioritizing Video in Your Local SEO Strategies

Video can be expensive, with Business.com averaging out the cost of professional video at $1,500-$20,000 per produced minute. But this is a wide range, and you shouldn't make your decision solely on that because there are other options that can suite your budget.

If your team is committing to spending thousands of dollars, it's important to understand the benefits. Not only can this help get your decision-makers on board in the first place, but it can help shape your publishing strategy and even the nature of the content.

Consider these different ways new video production will boost your local presence: 

Higher Engagement From Your Target Audience

While there are dozens of different tactics and options across all forms of SEO optimization and online marketing services, they all orient themselves around one core goal: more engagement. Video delivers, and it sizably outperforms static image content. Videos are clicked twice as much as images, and they generate at least 20% more conversions.

This means you'll have more interactions, more touchpoints, and more sales. Whether you're using video as part of your brand recognition efforts or as part of sales-focused campaigns, video has a place in the strategy. Some of the ways you can specifically orient your video efforts around a local target audience are:

• Filming at recognizable local spots, especially if you know the best spots for each individual neighborhood you serve
• Partnering with micro-influencers and nano influencers to directly link into the local culture
• Creating videos for or during local events

Higher engagement is also the foundation of two other benefits video can provide for your local SEO optimization efforts: better presence in the SERPs and increased website traffic.

Better Search Engine Rankings

Search engines use engagement to help measure the relevance of your website in addressing user queries. For example, if a shopper is looking for "pet friendly seafood restaurants in Miami" and the last hundreds of users with that query spent time on your website, your website is much more likely to appear near the top of the search engine results. But it gets even better with video:

• Visitors spend more time on your site because they're watching the video instead of scrolling briefly and then clicking back out.
• You can post videos on YouTube directly, which is one of the most popular search engines around the world.
• You can surround the video with blog content, diagrams, and closed captions so the information source is even more richly detailed—for both bots and humans.

The more online audiences meaningfully engage with your content, even if they don't immediately make a purchase, the better your website ranks. That positive impression will spread to similar keywords over time, increasing your domain authority and dominance across other queries. This matters because it increases your brand reputation, your company's overall visibility, and the memorable touchpoints likely buyers have with your brand.

Increased Website Traffic

Follow the benefits once step deeper. Video content, precisely because it is more engaging and relevant, will increase the number of visitors to your website. The various pathways consumers will take include:

• From search engines and specific queries your video content can help answer
• YouTube queues, especially with the right formatting and technical work to hook in recurring viewers and increase client retention
• Social media feeds, as viewers will pause at your video and are more likely to click through than with a static image or text

No matter which of these three pathways your shoppers come from, the end result is that more of them end up on your website and one step closer to your checkout. 

How to Use Video Content to Boost Local SEO and Visibility

The role of video content is clear when it comes to your local SEO optimization: it increases engagement, relevance, and proximity. But how precisely does it do that? More specifically, how can you and your inbound marketing agency make it do that once you have the video? Here are five immediate ways to use video.

Add Video to Every Text-Based Resource

While text can be valuable, it's less helpful and less engaging than video. Helpful tutorials, how-to videos, and edutainment content can use video segments to help your audience visualize things more clearly. Add them to any pages that are primarily text, such as your email marketing campaign newsletters, blogs, and FAQ pages. 

Increase Your Video Post Count on Social Media

Start ramping up your social media publishing schedule by adding in more videos. Start with a posting schedule you can consistently maintain. The good news on the social media management front is that you can intersperse professionally produced videos with candid clips. 

Create a Consistent Production and Posting Schedule

Again, consistency is key. One-off projects are disruptive, expensive, and easy to delay or put off indefinitely. If you and your video production company build the right processes for frequent production and posting, it becomes a reliable part of your multi-channel strategies. You can also better plan out campaigns for holidays, events, and peak seasons.

Analyze Video Engagement to Zero In on the Right Content

Zero in on the right content for your marketing goals by prioritizing analytics just as much as production. Some videos will resonate better than others, and different segments of your customer base will like specific videos or messaging best.

If you start measuring the impact of each video over time, you can discard ineffective ideas, ramp up production of your most successful videos, and know what type of video to create for every campaign.

Hire a Digital Marketing Agency for Streamlined Results

If you want to dive into video for better local SEO quickly, the best strategy is to bring in outside expertise. A professional video production company can help bring in all the infrastructural resources and connections you need to quickly start publishing high-quality videos, such as recommendations for video formats, and expertise in short-format storytelling.

Reach out to Visual Angle Media today to start creating your unique plan for boosting your brand's visibility.