[Build Backlinks Online] How to Leverage Investment in Video to Build More Links

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'How to Leverage Investment in
Video to Build More Links'


Posted by PhilNottingham
Video can be an expensive and time-consuming investment. For small businesses
especially, the cost of producing video will always have to be weighed against
other marketing investments, and the sad truth is that video can be a tough sell
â especially when the ROI from its significant expense is hard to predict
or quantify.
I think part of the problem is that most marketers (including SEOs) donât
have a very good understanding of the value that video can provide for them;
they see virality, branding, and perhaps increasing conversion rates as the
extent of it. Video as a media type, however, has potential on which few people
capitalise: the ability to secure fantastic, high quality links back to your
site.
In this post, I want to outline nine ways in which video can be used to augment
and enhance link-building activity, with the goal of giving you more ammunition
to secure an investment in video as part of a wider inbound marketing strategy.

1. Using video as a media type within interactive content
The kind of content you need:
Video is a media type â a form of content delivery â rather than a
âtype of contentâ as such. As the old adage goes, âform
follows function,â and this is exactly the approach you should be taking
when working out the best way to present a creative idea.
Pages where video is part of the overall sum of a multimedia interactive can be
extremely engaging, and as such generate a lot of links.
For example...
http://cloudsovercuba.com/ is a fantastic microsite that uses mixed media to
tell the story of the Cuban Missle Crisis. While this was not likely created
with links in mind, the page has managed to secure 1,920 links from 266 link
root domains (according to OSE).
Two guides from Simply Business, The Small Business Guide to WordPress and the
Small Business Guide to YouTube were created with link buidling in mind and
include embedded videos within each interactive flow chart. These are currently
at 179 and 22 linking root domains respectively

The technical implementation required:

If youâre building a multimedia webpage that canât realistically be
viewed through an iframe on another site, where you choose to host your video
ultimately doesnât matter.
Your main focus should be making the content lightweight, quick to load, and
mobile friendly. Therefore, either using the HTML5 <video> tag to display
video or embedding all videos through iframes is normally the best way to go,
though many other JavaScript-focused implementations are also fine.
JavaScript libraries such as popcorn.js can help you do some really cool things
with embedded video, such as changing the way pages look based on playback time.
2. Using video as link bait

The kind of content you need:

Things that go viral socially donât actually correlate all that well with
things that get lots of high quality, equity-passing links. This is because
there is a subtle difference between the kind of things youâre happy to
share socially and the kind of things youâre happy to include on your own
site through embeds/referring links. If someone embeds your video on their site
â it has to be because they want their readers to stop looking at their
own content and spend time watching yours instead.
If your explicit goal is to get people to embed and link to your video content,
Dollar Shave Club or Old Spice should not be the standards you aspire to.
Instead, you should be looking to create something that provides value for a
specific target demographic and the content must be informative, entertaining
and succinct.
In many instances, this ends up looking something like a video infographic. A
great example of this done successfully of late is from CCN, who created an
excellent piece on relative salaries which has accrued 43 linking root domains.

The technical implementation required:

When people embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo, or any other social video
platforms, they donât typically link to the domain of the creator in the
process, but instead, the profile of the user on the YouTube/Vimeo domains. This
is fantastic for the platforms themselves, but clearly sub-optimal for any
business trying to do SEO and build links back to their site in order to improve
rankings. While these social video platforms are a fantastic way to seed your
content and get it in front of a wider audience, you donât want the likes
of YouTube taking your link equity.
Therefore, if youâre creating video link bait â you should (at least
during your initial period of outreach) ensure the version of the video embedded
on your site is seen as the de facto âcanonicalâ by self-hosting or
hosting with a paid third-party online video hosting provider.
Iâve been lucky enough to try out all of the providers below:



To save you the hassle of research, Iâd estimate that in 90% of
circumstances, Wistia is by far the best solution (unless youâre a large
media house looking to serve advertising off your embedded videos, in which case
you should look at Brightcove). Wistia has the best tool available for marketers
and offers it at an extremely reasonable price. (Note: Iâm not being paid
or otherwise compensated by Wistia for saying that; Iâm just saying it
because right now itâs true. If any other online video platform starts
outperforming Wistia in terms of their offering, Iâll be sure to let you
know.)
After youâve set up your hosting, you need to ensure that you embed your
video in such a way that anyone who clicks an âembed this videoâ
button is given an embed code which will feature a referring href attribution
link to the appropriate page on your site where the video lives.
Unfortunately, no online video provider currently offers this as a standard
feature (although I know this is in the pipeline for Wistia), so for now, this
means youâll need to manually customise the embed codes for videos
youâre trying to use as link bait.
I have a built a tool which will automate this process for you. The âWith
textarea in textareaâ option is what you should choose for the embed on
your own site, while the âwithout double textareaâ is the option you
should choose when putting together an embed code to send to outreach prospects.

3. Build links off the back of your YouTube presence
The kind of content you need:
While marketers should think of YouTube primarily as a network for increasing
brand awareness, if you have videos with a viral/social element that are also
likely to generate a number of links, then YouTube can be a useful platform to
generate leads for link building.

The technical implementation required:

Anyone who embeds a YouTube video of yours should be seen as a really solid link
prospect, as theyâve essentially already linked to your content.
Oftentimes, a gracious and thankful outreach email to anyone who does embed
your YouTube videos can be a great way to both build relationships and convert
those YouTube embeds into links back to your own site rather than to
youtube.com. One angle I particularly like to use when reaching out is
suggesting that sites âswap the YouTube video embed for a high quality HD
embed that doesnât include ads,â and then providing them with an
alternative, securely hosted video iframe embed which includes a followed
attribution link underneath the video.
To work out who has previously embedded or linked to your YouTube videos, you
can use a combination of YouTube Analytics and Open Site Explorer.
The video below runs through the process of finding out where your videos have
been embedded:



From here, you should also put the following URL variations through Open Site
Explorer to find out where your video has been linked to but not embedded
(replace the ID string with your own):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=related

Note â if your âlink baitâ videos have a social/viral element
to them, you can put them on YouTube and follow the process above after your
period of outreach with a securely hosted video (as detailed in the âusing
video as link baitâ section).
If you have access to a significant budget for promotion and outreach, paying
for viral seeding can be a useful way to generate further link prospects from
your YouTube videos. I recommend using Unruly Media for such a service.

4. Advertise your content library and permission assets




Everyone hates YouTube ads. The meme above got 1597 upvotes on Reddit and hit
the front page, which is more or less proof of objective fact in internet terms.
However, I think this opinion is so widely held not because YouTube ads
necessarily suck, but because online video advertising is still a young industry
that has yet to mature. The majority of larger companies place their TV adverts
on YouTube and pay for seeding, rather than bothering to create content
specifically for the platform and target a specific audience accordingly.
One way in which YouTube ads could be more effective is by advertising a free
content library or permission asset â like an email list ârather
than a specific product or service that costs money.
This way, you can improve visibility of the content in which youâve
already invested and hopefully build additional second-order links to it through
this increased awareness.

The kind of content you need:YouTube ads can be as long as you like, but users
will always have the option of clicking away 5, 15, or 30 seconds into the
playback (dependent on the specific ad placement). Therefore, you essentially
need to grab the attention and interest of the audience within the first 5
seconds, and then effectively communicate the core message to entice clicks by
the 15 and 30 second marks. Put simply, your videos will need to sell the
virtues of your content quickly, efficiently, and in an entertaining way.

The technical implementation required:

Export your content with the appropriate settings and upload to YouTube. From
there, youâll need to tie your AdWords to your YouTube account and then
begin defining the target audience to which you want to advertise.

5. Use video to improve and augment page types

There is some evidence to suggest that by simply using video to improve the
quality of your commercially focused pages, you are likely to generate more
natural links across the board.
Check out the screenshots from the Majestic Historic Index below for appliances
online and Zappos â sites that have both invested heavily in product video
to improve their page types:
Zappos.com:



appliancesonline.co.uk:




The kind of content you need:

To a greater or lesser extent, what weâre talking about here is product
videos - i.e. videos created to provide information on a specific product or
service.
Product videos are most effective when they take an audience member from a place
of initial interest further down the path toward conversion by engaging on a
personal level with the likely questions and concerns of the interested party.
These videos should be mostly informational rather than promotional, more
âshopping channelâ than âTV ad.â

The technical implementation required:

If youâre creating videos to improve and augment specific pages on your
site â e.g. videos for specific products â then these videos should
always be either self-hosted or securely hosted using a third-party provider
(e.g. Wistia) as mentioned previously.
This is because these videos will likely only make sense within the context of
the pages for which theyâre created, and therefore wonât provide
much value for an audience finding your content through YouTube search or
recommendations. Additionally, by hosting such content on YouTube, you can risk
your site being outranked by the instance of the video on youtube.com for
branded queries relating to the specific product or service covered in the
video. For more information on this problem, check out my post on building a
video SEO strategy.For this kind of content, you should also be trying to get
video rich snippets in order to drive more clicks from the search results pages.
This can be achieved either through implementing schema.org mark-up, or by
submitting a video XML sitemap. See here for more information on implementation.

6. Support your blogging strategy

The kind of content you need:


Video for blogs should be primarily informational with reasonably soft branding.
âTalking headâ videos are perfect for this and if you have the
resources, supplementing the footage with screencasts and/or animated graphics
is often a nice way to break up the flow and provide interest.
In order to make it scalable and require minimal editing, Iâd normally
recommend trying to do these videos in one take with minimal scripting prior to
recording the content.Watch the video from Wistia feat. MC Fishkin which
explains exactly how Moz manages its creative process to scale the creation of
Whiteboard Friday videos with minimal effort.

The technical implementation required:
The hosting for your blogging videos should be determined by the answers to a
couple of questions.
1. Which is more important to you - greatest possible exposure to your content
or individuals only viewing the content in the context of your own site?
The two are fundamentally dichotomous. If you want maximum exposure, your
content should be hosted on YouTube,where it will rank well in the search
results (normally those for youtube.com, not for your site) and also be visible
throughout the YouTube platform. If you want users to only add comments on your
site, within your community framework as opposed to YouTubeâs; or are keen
to re-target visitors with PPC, then self hosting will be the more appropriate
option for you.
2. Is there any search volume on YouTube for the topics you are covering?
This can be worked out using the YouTube Keyword Tool. Be advised that data from
the YouTube keyword tool is fairly inaccurate, but the relative indicators of
search volume should give you a pretty good feel for whether there is any demand
for the content you will be creating.
If there is search volume, thatâs fantastic and your videos will likely
get some good traction on the YouTube platform should you wish to host there. If
thereâs no search volume, then having your videos on YouTube likely
wonât provide much additional value for you. If the latter is true,
youâll always be better off self-hosting your videos (or using a secure
third-party solution as explained previously), since this way you can drive all
traffic to your own site rather than to youtube.com.
You generally shouldnât think about doing both. If you decide to self-host
your content and also put it on YouTube, this strategy just gives individuals
the option of viewing and linking to content on YouTube rather than your own
site, while failing to undertake the primary activity that will help boost your
YouTube rankings ânamely, embedding your YouTube videos and driving views
through those embeds. Rather than giving you best of both worlds, it can
actually give you the worst of both worlds.

7. Create video content for other sites
Video content can get you top-tier guest posts and linking opportunities. If
youâre able to show a proven history of creating valuable and interesting
video content for your own site and others, pitching for guest-post
opportunities on top sites becomes so much easier than the standard cold
approach.
The kind of content you need:


In many ways, the kind of content youâd use to guest post will have a very
similar form factor to the kind of video youâd normally include on your
own blog âmostly âtalking head" focused.
Interviews of your customers/authorities in your industry often work really well
here, because the videos can also act as ego bait. If you can make an individual
look really professional on camera in a way they would be unable to do
themselves, it can be really easy to get some great links from them for doing
so.If you have the resources or skills, you can also create product videos for
commercial partners or build ads for content created by others (someone did this
for Distilled, for free, and you can bet I gave them a few links).

The technical implementation required:

Ultimately, as long as you get a link, the way in which a video is embedded on
someone else's site shouldnât matter to you.
However, if the target in question is not particularly amenable to linking out
to you, one of the best ways to encourage them is to only provide the webmaster
with an embed code for the content, rather than the raw video file.This means
securely hosting the content with a platform like Wistia, enabling domain
restrictions and then including a text link back to your site at the end of the
embed code (as covered above in Idea 2, using video as link bait).In the vast
majority of instances, webmasters wonât bother to tweak the embed code and
remove the link, whereas if they take the embed code themselves from the
instance of the video on a social platform (YouTube/ Vimeo etc.), the embed code
will not include an attribution link back to your site with it as standard.

8. Build a content series for social video platforms
Blip.tv and dailymotion.com will give you really high authority (DA93 and DA97),
followed profile links if you can a get content series accepted onto the
platform and with the relevant user status.

The kind of content you need:

For both of these sites, you will need regularly publish content covering a
specific theme that is completely non-branded or commercial in nature.
Youâll also need to create different videos for each platform. There is a
stringent editorial process to get acceptedto either site, and unless your
content is relevant to their target audiences, you wonât be granted the
Dailymotion motionmaker status (which includes a followed link) or a blip.tv
channel profile.
Creating a content series specifically for a single link is obviously a huge
investment in time and money, but remember that the benefit here will be brand
awareness and hopefully referring traffic, too. If youâre in a
particularly âtrickyâ niche to which it's difficult to build links,
but you have a lot of expert knowledge within your company, this might be a
useful technique for you to leverage.
The technical implementation required:
None. You just need to ensure your content is exported in 16:9 at a decent frame
size (I normally recommend 1280x720 HD) and uploaded to the respective platform.



9. Boost PR efforts with video news releases
The kind of content you need:
The purpose of a video news release is to support a press release with ancillary
information that gives further context around the story in question.Video news
releases are a particularly useful asset for any PR campaign, since they allow
your story to make it to the top of a journalist's pile. Reporters donât
always have the time to write up articles for every interesting pitch, but with
a video release youâre essentially doing half the work for them. All
editors need to do with a VNR is put together a supporting paragraph, embed the
video and then click publish.

The technical implementation required:
Video news releases should always be hosted on YouTube, since the majority of
sites are comfortable with embedding YouTube videos on their site and know how
to get an embed code from a video on youtube.com
The best practice is just to include a link to the YouTube instance of the video
within your initial outreach email. If your contact gets back to you in a
positive way regarding the story, you can ask for a âcredit linkâ
for the video pointing back to your site.
That's my nine!
I hope you found this post useful! Do you have any other good ways to build
links with video? If so, please do hit me up in the comments! Iâd love to
hear about any new ideas.


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