Embedding Video for SEO? YouTube, Vimeo, or Wistia?
-
I believe Vimeo has the advantages of being able to embed your video on your website without advertising and the ability to brand the player with your company name. Can't do that with YouTube. However obviously Google give a bit more weight to YouTube videos in search results. But I'm talking about ranking the website, not the video.
If the objective is to provide the biggest boost to the website's ranking (not the individual video), is it best to embed the YouTube video or can you post the video on both YouTube, Vimeo, and Wistia and embed the Vimeo or Wistia video?
My gut feeling is that Google would see the direct linkage between the video on YouTube and the website it's embedded on and potentially that would have (albeit probably small) more benefit in the website's ranking than embedding the Vimeo or Wistia video?
HOWEVER, re the SEO claims on this Wistia page true? Would the best strategy be to use Wistia for embedding and then also post the videos on a YouTube channel for maximum exposure?
From Wistia:
_Vimeo, like YouTube, is a powerful domain for SEO, but when you host your videos on these platforms, you are not doing your website's SEO a favor. When you upload your video to Vimeo or YouTube, the search engines are indexing the original url, not your website's. In contrast, when you embed a Wistia video on your website, your website gains all of the SEO benefits.
Vimeo videos are ranked to drive traffic to Vimeo to keep users on their platform. Wistia videos drive traffic to your website—not ours._
-
That's a great article but although he breaks the goals into three nice little categories, the reality is that many businesses may want equal emphasis on all three goals (brand awareness, consideration & advocacy, conversion) so it still leaves things pretty 'gray' in my opinion.
So let me give a specific example to focus this thread a bit more narrowly. Let's say the business is brand new so there's no brand recognition and the website has just been launched. And let's say its a photography business where the business' work portfolio is KEY in really all three areas at this point (branding, consideration, and conversion). It seems the article is recommending that if you're new, and your video content is important for consideration & conversion, then you should FIRST privately embed it on your website (via Wistia). After your site starts to rank well (which could take a LONG time), THEN create a Business YouTube Channel. Although YouTube has such high domain authority, I would think you would still risk having your YouTube videos rank higher than your website. But can you not embed lots of branding into your Youtube videos, right? Like links to your website within the video. So if your business is based around producing images (photography and video) maybe it would be the best strategy to do both approaches simultaneously and not delay the YouTube Channel building.
-
I would follow the Whiteboard Friday methodology, since clearly Moz has thought about this strategy (I hope). They post the Wistia video on their site and then post a YouTube video.
You'll only ever see YouTube and Vimeo videos in the search results with the video snippet, you won't see a Wistia video snippet. If you want people to link to your website, then having it embedded with Wistia only is the way to go and don't post it on YouTube. But if you're looking for the most video views and exposure you should do both.
There have been a few changes since this post, but this post by Phil Nottingham has the best breakdown on the options.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How can I get maximum Seo juice from others embedding my content
Hi - I create virtual tours which I host and my clients embed (this site will be a holiday directory one day and linking is unlikely). What can I do with the embed code they use - most use iframes - to get maximum Seo juice? Example tour below https://bestdevonholidays.co.uk/lavender/virtualtour.html Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | virtualdevon0 -
Are these URL hashtags an SEO issue?
Hi guys - I'm looking at a website which uses hashtags to reveal the relevant content So there's page intro text which stays the same... then you can click a button and the text below that changes So this is www.blablabla.com/packages is the main page - and www.blablabla.com/packages#firstpackage reveals first package text on this page - www.blablabla.com/packages#secondpackage reveals second package text on this same page - and so on. What's the best way to deal with this? My understanding is the URLs after # will not be indexed very easily/atall by Google - what is best practice in this situation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
SEO of blogging websites
What are the best practices of doing SEO of article/blogging websites.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Obbserv0 -
SEO Monthly Strategy
Out of curiosity, do any Mozzers use a monthly spreadsheet style SEO strategy that is set on a daily basis like this: Day 1 - purchase/write 3 articles
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fertilefrog
Day 2 - comment on 5 blogs
Day 3 - upload article 1
Day 4 - directory submissions
Day 5 - blog promotion
Day 6 - etc..... If so, do you find this to be the most effective way of working, with this rigid structure?0 -
Subdomains + SEO
Hi everyone, So a little background - my company launched a new website (http://www.everyaction.com). The homepage is currently hosted on an amazon s3 bucket while the blog and landing pages are hosted within Hubspot. My question is - is that going to end up hurting our SEO in the long run? I've seen a much slower uptick in search engine traffic than I'm used to seeing when launching new sites and I'm wondering if that's because people are sharing the blog.everyaction.com url on social (which then wouldn't benefit just everyaction.com?) Anyways, a little help on what I should be considering when it comes to subdomains would be very helpful. Thanks, Devon
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EveryActionHQ0 -
Yoast Wordpress SEO premium
As anyone installed Yoast Wordpress SEO premium. Love to ear some feedbacks. I have some problems on installations that i am trying to solve as i am not an expert on SEO.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Hosting Providers and SEO
I have been wondering for a while which web host provider is the best for SEO purposes? Things to consider. Shared Hosting vs Dedicated Server Location of the Host Provider Site Up Time One question that I have been thinking about is what impact would changing a host provider have on a websites serps ranking? Is there a possible negative impact and if so how can it be avoided? Name the top 3 Web Hosts for SEO.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Ability to predict the future of SEO?
I just finished watching a documentary on Ray Kurzweil, Transcedent, and began to familiarize myself with his book, The Singularity is Near. During Ray's explanation of prediction through data gathering and extrapolation, he predicts that by 2029 AI and humans will have merged. We can debate this at another time, but I was wondering if any of the statistics/data is used by SEO professionals to predict where SEO may be going in the next 12-48 months. It has been my experience that SEO is very reactionary, and very few put their neck out on a limb to predict where it is going. I was just hoping that some of you may share your thoughts on what you are focusing on and where you are steering your clients in order to be ahead of the curve without hurting current placement. Anyone care to share?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dignan990