They just can’t seem to get it done! You hired a digital marketing company six months ago to move your website to the top of Google, and it’s not happening. They built a beautiful new website for you, but it’s stuck on page two. You call the marketing company weekly, and they just tell you they need more content. Content? You gave them copies of all of your marketing brochures! What more could they want? You have a business to run, and you don’t have time to write something else.
Your troubles are the troubles of most small businesses. These businesses hire digital marketing agencies to move them up in Google rankings, and the digital marketing agencies don’t deliver because there isn’t enough quality, relevant and recent information online to attract favorable attention from Internet users and from Google. The effort to build that information, that content, often evolves into a dispute between the business and the marketing agency. But it doesn’t have to be!
Let Video Power Your Local Content Strategy
Video can be the solution. A video production program can be the foundation of your local content strategy. If you can talk (or you know someone who can talk for you) and you have access to an iPhone or some other camera, you can make a video. If you’re an expert on your local business products or services, then you can make a video that provides the quality, relevant and recent information that Google and your potential customers are looking for.
Video works for many reasons. Here are four of them:
1. People Prefer Video. Video works extremely well on a desktop and even better on a tablet or phone. People would much rather watch a short video about your products and services than read about them. People spend 100% more time on pages with videos on them.
2. Works on Mobile. Mobile use is growing rapidly and desktop use is flat. Why not use a medium that works on both!
3. It’s Easier to Talk than Write. For most people, it’s easier to stand in front of the camera and talk (or demonstrate something) than it is to write about it. Your mother will like seeing your videos online, although she may tell you to stand up straight.
4. Video is More Persuasive. Customers are 85% more likely to purchase a product after watching a product video.
Video can be the foundation of your local content strategy because it can support most other aspects of your local content development. What’s a content strategy? It’s the planning and management of content creation and distribution that’s user friendly and meets user needs. So your video production process can be the foundation of your local business process to create content that’s easy for your customers to find online and that meets their needs for information.
Video Transforms to Meet Your Local Content Needs
Need text content for your local business website pages and blog posts? Starting with your videos, you can get them transcribed to create the quality, relevant and recent text content that Google is looking for, and you can use that new content in web pages and blog posts with your videos.
Need business information you can use with Facebook? You can upload your videos directly to Facebook and your videos will be shared, playing continuously in mute to attract clicks and shares for your posts. Plus your videos will be displayed on the left column of your Facebook business page to engage new page visitors.
Want to do more? Upload your videos to YouTube, and they can appear in YouTube and Google search results. Make sure you add closed captioning to your videos to help the search engines understand what your videos are about. Don’t rely on the closed captioning that YouTube automatically generates for every video it hosts — YouTube’s automatic transcription is often horrible!
Other uses for your videos? Share your videos on your Pinterest for Business boards. Share your videos on Google+ and Google My Business. You can feed all of your needs for local content with your video content strategy.
How to Launch Your Local Video Content Strategy
Next week, we’ll talk about how to get started. What kinds of videos should you create? What topics work best? What kind of equipment do you need? Should you edit your videos or just record the first take and go with it? Where should you host your videos? How can you get your videos transcribed? How should you display your videos?
If you have questions or comments about your experience with video in local digital marketing, please post them in the comments.
About Paul Sherland
Paul Sherland is President of IX Brand SEO Services Company, a small digital marketing agency outside Houston serving local businesses. Paul’s background is unique in the digital marketing world; he’s served as a US Navy pilot and squadron commanding officer, he’s led teams working in data analysis and computer simulation, and he’s a lawyer, too.
