How to Build Traffic and Backlinks using videos

Frequent algorithm changes made linkbuilding a potentially negative activity for every site out there. If, in the past, a link’s source was less important, once Google’s algorithm matured, identifying low-quality links became easier for them. Penalties caused by a deficient linkbuilding thus became more frequent.

This is why many webmasters are asking themselves what their options are. They’re also wondering what they can do to promote their sites in a way that’s accepted by Google.

One of the most underestimated methods of obtaining traffic and quality backlinks is done using videos. There are various ways to promote them. Today, though, we’ll explain in detail the advantages of this type of linkbuilding; and what sort of traffic you can obtain for your site.

Numerous studies showed that a page containing a video has more chances of receiving a natural link than a normal page without a video. The effort of creating videos can result in a cascade-like effect. That’s why videos introduced on your site will help obtain quality natural links.

There are 2 main types of promoting a site through videos.

Video sharing websites

Our first method implies the use of video sharing sites when promoting a movie. The advantages of this are the following:

• video sharing websites have a large number of visitors and high authority;
• Google usually shows videos in SERP, which means an elevated CTR and high traffic, all for free;
• you don’t need additional promotion since these sites usually have enough authority to help videos rank well in Google;
• hosting costs don’t exist since the movies are rolled on dedicated servers which don’t affect the budget used for a site’s promotion;
• if you want to promote the site using methods less agreed by Google, a potential penalty given to the site the video’s on won’t land you in trouble (you can simply delete the video and move it to another address on the same site).

The youtube.com result can trigger a click on it, because the video looks more promising for users.

As for disadvantages:

• links aren’t always dofollow ones;
• the users can include videos on other sites using “embed” / alternative methods. That way, the resulting backlinks can eventually increase the video sharing website’s authority instead of your own domain’s authority.

Self hosted videos

This method implies the use of your actual site to host the video. Here are this method’s pros:

• if a user wants to share a video you’re hosting and this clip allows the use of the “embed” function, the links coming out of this activity will help raise the site’s authority;
• Google search results will show the video that’s on your site, which means an increased CTR (click-through rate) for you and not your competitors;
• comments related to the video will remain on your site, meaning original content and added value.

Now for disadvantages:

• server and hosting costs will skyrocket (if the traffic is high, you’ll need a dedicated server, meaning more final costs);
• choosing this method implies lots of technical knowledge.

How to raise traffic and number of links through videos

The easiest solution to promote a site is by using video sharing sites. The majority of webmasters and blog / virtual shops owners will want to know how to promote their products or sites via this method. They’ll also want to know the costs of going with this strategy.

Let’s take this scenario: a virtual shop with 100 products that need a special promotion. Let’s imagine the site has low traffic and its owner wants to restart sales and the number of backlinks. Such an example is Zappos.com. A case study done on this site showed this: following a product presentation campaign, the site quickly received 7800 backlinks from 1500 domains.

Another interesting case is this site: willitblend.com. Their approach is the following: the people behind it make viral-type videos. Containing only a dozen of electronical products destroyed in tests, the site got 80,000 backlinks from around 6000 domains. The manufacturer behind the blenders used in videos sold 700% more products during the campaign than they did before starting. The videos they posted were watched over 246 million times.

Tom Dickinson: Since “Will It Blend?” started, we’ve had explosive sales growth of 700 percent of our home products. It’s been a home run since the day we launched. Talk about viral marketing, now I’m the expert, but it’s all George. We’re in textbooks and I speak to marketing people all the time, but when George first pitched his idea to me I said, “Who tube?” I’m glad I listened to him because our marketing department makes money.

This is, of course, a special campaign. But you can enjoy a successful site using something less viral.

By using relatively low cost methods (say, an everyday video cam), a site owner can make unboxing / product presentation. Or they can present how certain products are made. If the site offers different services, videos can contain client testimonials or various aspects of their activity.

If you can’t make such videos, you can create Power Point-related clips. This method offers the possibility of exporting them directly in video format; which you can later on distribute, depending on your strategy, to various sites or your own server.

Rules for a successful campaign

If you create a campaign strictly to gain links instead of improving the traffic directly generated by videos, try not to use this method too much. Don’t use “money keywords”-based anchors even if the platform allows you to do it.

Use a fitting title and description to increase the video’s potential traffic volume. Google Keyword Planner can suggest search volumes for the words you want promoted.

Try to create quality clips using a format that’s easy to understand and distribute. Sound quality is very important in case you present a certain product. Try to make the video in HD or full HD.

If you use your own hosting for videos, use the HTML5 format instead of iframe. The latter is difficult to access by Google. Don’t use autoplay, it’s better to let the user decide if they want to play the video. Don’t forget to include Facebook, Twitter and Google+ sharing buttons on the page where the video is.

Another crucial thing is to include the video’s transcript on the page. Do that in order to give more content for the page. Remember to leave comments on so that users can interact with you after looking at the videos. Players usually posted on your own site contain a link to the producer’s site; try to get rid of the respective link or look for a technical solution that doesn’t need an additional external link.

Always add a sitemap video from the site. There are several sitemap standards depending on the video’s type: standalone or hosted on video sharing sites. You need to adapt your strategy to the standard used in the campaign.

Another useful tool is markup schema.org for videos. This way, Google can better understand the movie’s attributes (author, producer, production company and so on).

Sites which offer backlink insertion

These are the sites that offer backlink once videos are added:

1. YouTube.com is most likely the best solution if you want to distribute the movie to a large number of visitors. The main advantage of using this platform is the fact that videos easily rank on sites with low and medium competition. This pro makes it easy to promote niche-based products and services. The main disadvantage is this: the links coming from this platform are nofollow.
2. Vimeo.com is an alternative to YouTube (the IBLs which are offered are also nofollow).
3. Facebook.com offers traffic coming from social media users of the platform (links are nofollow).
4. DailyMotion.com offers traffic and nofollow links.
5. Flickr.com offers low traffic and the possibility to insert a nofollow link.
6. Wonderhowto.com – nofollow link.
7. TheUltimateLive.com – dofollow backlink.