SEO Journal

Local businesses can significantly increase the rate at which they are found by consumers on the Internet by creating and distributing a video, a study released today by Spotzer Media showed. Spotzer data showed that businesses were more than 30 times more likely to receive customer attention when they created a professional video and distributed it through a process called Video Search Engine Optimization ("Video SEO.")

"Video SEO helps businesses get found on the Internet. It is a new technology in which a video first gets associated with relevant data and then the video plus data gets distributed across the Internet to be picked up by Google and other search engines." said Gordon Henry, President of Spotzer Media. "Creating a professional video and then having that video SEO-ed usually results in a high business ranking on Google. That attention from Internet users generates leads and phone calls to the local business."

The Spotzer survey shows that businesses with properly optimized videos ranked high on the most important search query for small businesses -- Google searches for category with location (for example "skin treatment Philadelphia PA"). Over 60% of local businesses with a properly optimized video reached the first page in such a search and over 75% of those attained top five listing position.

For each video Spotzer also calculated the findability improvement ratio -- the highest Google ranking for the business before Video SEO divided by the highest Google ranking for the business after Video SEO. The average improvement ratio for all videos was over 30. The effect on number of clicks for the business was even larger than the findability improvement ratio because the number of clicks on Google behaves in a non-linear fashion (i.e. the number 1 rank on Google gets far more than 5 times as many clicks as the number 5 rank).

Moreover, once a business listing gets found, the video also increases user interaction with the page. "Local businesses that have added video to their web pages are seeing significant increases in user attention," said Simon Greenman, Managing Director of Online for European Directories, which operates online yellow pages directories in seven countries. "Video is the most clicked item on the profile page. Users naturally click on and watch business videos on our sites. When they do, they frequently call the businesses, and the businesses end up benefiting by getting more new leads."

Many merchants already understand the effectiveness of video advertising and are using it. "Video has become an integral part of our marketing efforts," said Michael Jundi at United Freight and Logistics. "Since adding video to our website, we have gotten positive feedback from old and new clients. When our sales people talk to business prospects they have them go to our website and view our video." Said Rick Cochran at Fort Bend Music Center: "I know people are viewing the video because they mention that I am the person in the video when they come in."