Video is a strong component of search engine rankings. As the search engines strive to return ever more relevant results, more and more videos are making it to the top. Nate Elliott of Forrester Research found that videos are 53 times more likely to appear on the first page of search results than text pages. Online video views, especially from concentrated video sites such as YouTube, have exploded in popularity surpassing online searches. The unique ability of videos to “go viral” and attract large audiences makes them extremely attractive to search engines which rely on turning up good search results in order to keep their customers. Adding video to your search engine optimization strategy is key, and includes key words in the titles, tags and file names. Videos hosted on YouTube also get much more love from Google in its search rankings. In a recent survey of more than 400 executives 67% said online video would be a primary focus of their 2011 online marketing.

Creating video content as part of your digital marketing strategy is a great way to improve search engine results, but it is also a great way to grab the attention of potential customers and keep them coming back to your site. Video content should be informative and focused on what your business has to offer it's customers. Your typical video should probably not be any longer than your average pop song on the radio. This way the potential customer will not get bored with the video's content. The condensed format will also allow the viewer to gain as much knowledge about a product or service in as little time possible. This is very appealing for web surfers and people just browsing to see if they are interested in a certain product or not. No one wants to sit in front of their computer and sit through a long infomercial like they would on the couch at 3 am in the morning. Videos should be tagged and titled properly in order to attract as many searches as possible.