Does embedded content (from my site) help seo

[neilhenderson]

hi

i am creating a new accommodation site and will have some great videos on it (fly bys of local beaches and virtual tours of hotels etc).

from an seo perspective i have two questions:

1. should i host on my own site or youtube/vimeo  - its a new site but in the long run i want my site to get the credit

2. i will be giving the hotels the chance to embed and video content i have on their own sites.  does this help my own seo juice and if so is there a particular way it should be done.  there will be around 90 well established local hotels in total so figured it should add up.

[StephanSolomonidis]

Hi Neil,

Don't host the video in two separate locations. You don't want to publish it to Youtube and also store it on your own server, for example. In light of your latest comment, I'd suggest you publish the videos to Youtube, embed those videos on your site, and encourage the hotels to do the same. You should associate the Youtube channel with your own site, and provide links back to your site from the videos (as Andy suggested). Follow the steps outlined in Youtube's guide.

In an ideal world -- a world where all 90 hotels were happy to link to your website -- this advice might be different. Ideally, you'd have links to your site. But if you self-host, it seems likely that you'll have hardly any views: your hotel partners won't link to the videos, and the videos won't be easily discoverable. By hosting on Youtube and encouraging video embeds among your hotel partners, you can at least, as you said, generate a lot of interest around the content. Google does favour Youtube videos in SERPs, so this strategy should help your Youtube channel perform well for queries related to your partner hotels. You can use cards or annotations in the Youtube videos to direct visitors to your site, as well as providing a link in the description.

[neilhenderson]

thanks andy - yep that tricky part is the hotels wont want to embed the video if it links to my site (as that will then mean someone could end up seeing their competitors).  i guess i could do both with a version on my site and one on youtube or is that dodgy for duplication?  sorry for confusion but its a key part of my content strategy and i have investing in high spec cameras to eithr do drone footage or virtual tours (which would sit on my site) and want to ensure this engaging content gets viewed as much as possible (so embedded on their sites) whilst enhancing the credibility of my own site

thanks - sorry for waffle!

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Look past YouTube for your SEO benefits Neil. If you have a lot of hotels working with you, links from these to key pages on your site will be much more beneficial for you.

However, this doesn't mean you should ignore YouTube, as it can be a great source of traffic. Get those call-to-actions in there, as a video watermark, as a link on the video and from your channel, and engage with those that join in with the discussions. Human interaction can play a big part.

-Andy

[neilhenderson]

thanks - i see what you mean.  as there will be potentially around 90 well established hotel sites embedding these videos (will be more than one - around 6 per hotel) is there anything i can do to get more seo juice from them doing well on youtube?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi,

The best way to look at video, is look at any search results where they appear - Google never shows anything that is self hosted. In terms of getting traffic from a video, I would be creating the video and hosting it on YouTube and then embedding that on your site. Create your own channel and then link back from the videos and your channel back to your site.

Perhaps if a video is embedded on a hotel's website, you could try and figure in a way to get a link back to your own site as part of the 'package' on offer.

I hope that makes sense?

-Andy