Custom, video content is a great way to engage with prospective customers and current clients, but it can do something else equally exciting – if it’s optimized, it can double Google traffic. For marketers who want to gain ground over their competition through clickthrough rates, a video marketing campaign could be a viable option.
According to Visibility IQ’s Social Video Report, females over age 35 searched for the term “Clinique turnaround instant facial” as part of a case study. Half of these women were shown a results page with a video thumbnail as fourth in line. The other half saw results without thumbnails. Interestingly, without a video thumbnail, 11 percent of the women clicked the fourth search result, but 28 percent clicked through when the thumbnail was included. The idea of video inspiring trust among potential leads signals new opportunities for marketers to create compelling content strategies.
Visibility IQ ran another test of males between the ages of 20 and 64 searching for “adventure travel,” revealing that the fourth link was clicked by 46 percent of the men when a video thumbnail was included, in contrast to a 28 percent clickthrough rate when it was not.
Marketers looking to promote their brands through SERPs should consider video thumbnails alongside images, engaging content, catchy headlines and natural links. Brafton recently reported that 183 million internet users in the U.S. watched videos in September 2012. With 88 percent of ‘net surfers in the U.S. watching at least one video per month, it’s worthwhile to consider SEO and social media marketing campaigns that contain video.The acceptance of video on the internet as a growing content type may encourage more brands to incorporate visual content in their own online advertising efforts.
