I’m going to absolutely blow your mind. Are you ready for it?
Google owns YouTube.
Now I’m going to blow your mind again.
Google is just a little bit of a monster.
When you publish a YouTube video → and people watch your video → Google makes money through advertising.
And Google really likes making money.
So before even getting to the meat and potatoes of this article, you probably already have a hunch that embedding YouTube videos onto your site could help your SEO.
Let’s dig in further.
P.S – this article is written by Joey Randazzo. He owns SEO Growth Partners, a digital marketing company in Portland that specializes in SEO. He’s personally worked with 250+ companies over the past 7 years.
For Those of You Who Hate Reading, The Short Answer Is…
Embedding YouTube videos onto your site helps SEO if it meets the following criteria:
- You’re embedding a YouTube video where the content of the video matches the content within the page/article.
- For example, you have a page on your site about “Auto Mechanic Services for Porches” and the YouTube video is all about how your mechanics specialize in Porches
- The content on the page and the content within the video is helpful to the user.
- Ask yourself… “if they were to read every word or watch every second of the video, would they get relevant information that helps them?”
- The page and YouTube video follow SEO best practices
- You won’t perform as well as you could if your page and YouTube video are about “Auto Mechanic Services for Porches”…
- but your URL structure is www.example.com/cars (instead of www.example.com/mechanic-specialties-by-brand/porches)
- and your YouTube video is titled “Jonny’s Auto Shop Information” instead of “Porsche Mechanic Specialty in the Portland Area – Learn More”
- You won’t perform as well as you could if your page and YouTube video are about “Auto Mechanic Services for Porches”…
What Does Google Say About Embedding YouTube Videos For SEO?
Directly “Answering” The Question
The most recent direct response we have from Google is back in 2021.
John Mueller says:
“It depends. With YouTube you have two video landing pages. You have the landing page on youtube and you have the landing page on your site. We have to figure out which one of these pages to show and it can happen that we show your site as the video result landing page just because we have more information there perhaps.
It can also be that we show the YouTube landing page because we have more signals or more information there. So that’s something where it’s not automatically the case that we would show the YouTube landing page.
Some other video platforms have their own landing pages that they create automatically, some video hosting platforms don’t do that at all, essentially that’s kind of up to you there.”
What does all this ⬆️ mean?
John Mueller isn’t saying that embedding a YouTube video will help SEO. He’s saying that Google’s bots have to crawl two different sources of the video (one on Youtube.com and the other embedded on your site and determine which page should rank).
Indirectly Answering the Question
Google has a LOT of documentation out there. We can read between the lines to determine if embedding a YouTube video will help SEO or not.
Within all the different documentation, Google frequently talks about creating content that’s people-first.
In 2022, Google released the Helpful Content Update, saying:
Long story short…
Create content that users like. End of story.
The good news is that embedding YouTube videos can frequently improve a user’s experience on your site, add more value to them, and provide more comprehensive information.
Going Into More Detail About What Google Likes
Google likes 3 things:
- Comprehensive content: Google says “Does the content provide a substantial, complete, or comprehensive description of the topic?”
- Content created by experts: Google says “Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it?”
- Content that’s high-quality: Google says “Is the content produced well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?”
Therefore, creating a YouTube video that 1) is comprehensive and 2) is created by an expert and 3) is well-produced should (according to Google) help your SEO.
Here’s an example of what this looks like in action:
A hypothetical law firm in Portland, OR specializes in 3 specific use cases:
- Car accidents
- Bicycle accidents
- Workplace accidents
They should have a specific landing page on their site for each types of accidents, such as:
- www.example.com/case-types/car-accidents
- www.example.com/case-types/bicycle-accidents
- www.example.com/case-types/workplace-accidents
Each of those pages should be comprehensive, answering questions like:
- How long have you been working with clients that have this specific problem?
- How do you help me win my case?
- What’s your process?
- Examples of clients that you’ve helped
- Testimonials from clients with my specific problem
- Etc
Then, they should produce a video about each type of accident they help with and publish those videos to YouTube, titling the videos something like…
- Car Accident Lawyer in Portland: How We’ved Helped 300+ Clients
- Bicycle Accident Lawyer in Portland: How We’ved Helped 300+ Clients
- Workplace Accident Lawyer in Portland: How We’ved Helped 300+ Clients
From there, the final step is to embed each video on its corresponding page.
This formula above, regardless of what type of business you have, is simple. But it’s not easy. It takes a lot of work and expertise.
Bridge City Media can help you navigate the complexities of video production and video marketing to help you create engaging, high-performing content that users (and Google) will love.
Going Into An Extreme Amount of Detail As To Why Embedding YouTube Videos Can Help Your SEO
Google is crazy smart.
It crawls every inch of the internet.
But it goes beyond that, especially with YouTube videos.
For EVERY YouTube video out there, YouTube automatically transcribes it.
Google now knows every single word said within that video. The video becomes a piece of content in itself (obviously). But if you think about it, by embedding this YouTube video onto your content, that page on your site suddenly has way more comprehensiveness.
Let’s say you have…
- A 1,500 word article on how to detail a Porsche.
- And a 19-minute Youtube video on how to detail a Porsche (like the video above). That 18-minute video probably has about 1,000 words spoken.
Suddenly the page on your site became almost 2x longer (AKA, in Google’s eyes, nearly 2x as comprehensive).
Embedding a YouTube video could be the difference between ranking on the 2nd page of Google and ranking at the top of page 1.
The Biggest Mistake People Make When Embedding YouTube Videos for SEO
There are two main mistakes that people make:
First: They embed YouTube videos that don’t align with the specific page’s content:
For embedded YouTube videos to really help SEO, you need to embed videos that perfectly match the content on the website page.
Below is an example of how it should be done correctly.
We have a page on our website that targets the keyword “SEO for wineries” → the goal of this page is to rank for wineries that are looking for a new SEO partner.
And…. voila! We rank first organically on Google (look for yourself).
Within that article, we have embedded a YouTube video.
The content topic of the YouTube video? It’s the exact same as the article. It talks about “SEO for wineries”
Even adjacent topics can confuse Google.
If you create a website page about X.
And then film a YouTube video about X-ish, it may not be close enough.
Quick hack to know when the topics aren’t closely related enough:
Simply go to Google and search for the main keyword of the article and the YouTube video. If Google showcases two completely different results, then they’re not related enough.
For example, if you go to Google and type in:
- SEO for wineries
- Digital marketing for wineries
You’ll actually get two completely different results. In your head, you’ll see them as closely related. However, Google sees them as two different things.
Second: Their YouTube content is horrible.
They create video content that is:
- Low quality
- Uninspiring
- Not helpful
- Overly self-promotional
Remember, you need to ask yourself the following question when publishing a YouTube video and embedding it on your site…
“Will the user walk away from watching this video happy that they watched every second of it?”
If the answer is no, then don’t publish and embed the YouTube video.
Wrapping Up
Producing high-quality YouTube content isn’t easy.
Pairing that YouTube content with SEO-friendly website pages is even less easy.
But the good news?
Your competitors likely aren’t investing in this strategy. If you publish 2 YouTube videos per month and embed those videos on relevant content, you’ll be eons ahead of your competitors after 18-24 months.
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