A lot of podcasters are creating video content. However, not all of them are optimizing it. There are benefits to uploading video content on social media, but there is a hidden power in embedding YouTube videos into your website. In this episode, Tom Hazzard explains how embedding videos into your blog posts or anywhere on your website can increase your engagement and attract more viewers. Stay tuned for more tips on video content creation that will help Feed Your Brand!

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The Hidden Power Of Embedding YouTube Videos To Help Your Media Website Be Seen

We’re going to talk about what I think was probably a subject most people think, “Is it that important?” I’m going to suggest, yes, it’s relatively simple in some ways, but very important. What I’m talking about is the hidden power of embedding YouTube videos to help your media website be seen. When it’s seen, it’s also found. That’s what we all are looking for as podcasters. More listeners, more traffic to our website, more people learning what we’re about and reaching out to us hopefully, their lead generation or whatever your particular purpose is in growing an audience, but we all want to be found by more of the right people.

When you have a podcast, for those of you that record video, then there are a couple of different ways that you can do this. I want to preface this by saying, even if you don’t record and publish your podcast as a video, that’s okay because there’s more to embedding videos in your website or in your posts on your website than just your podcast content.

For those of you that are recording your episodes as video, which in terms of our clients that we’re producing podcasts for, about 38%, 40% of our customers are also recording video, having it edited and published, converted also into video clips, video means and other social media assets. For some of them, that’s more why they record the video than for YouTube itself. However, what I want to share with you is there is a lot of power for your website and for you to be found and seen by embedding YouTube videos in your website.

Some of you may do this a lot and have a video page. Some people I see have a video page on their website, where it’s a gallery of all their videos. That’s good, but written content on your website, what I’m talking about are blog posts and, for most of us podcasters, more importantly, podcast related blog posts, that are a supplement to the episode or resource for their listeners or their viewers. Google is controlling the phrases that people are searching, that they’re matching up with your post and sending people there.

The more layers there are to the content in a post, the more you're going to be seen and the more people that Google is going to send your way through search. Click To Tweet

The words are critically important, but what is also important is the kind of blog posts, the depth of blog posts, the fact that if it’s a multimedia blog post. The more layers there are to the content in a post, the more you’re going to be seen and the more people that Google is going to send your way through search.

One of the ways you can do that’s very powerful is to embed YouTube videos into your website. Why YouTube videos? Some people use Vimeo. There are reasons to use Vimeo, and on some even of our content for certain purposes, we’ll use Vimeo videos. They load faster and a little lower overhead on your website, but remember, YouTube is the number two search engine on the internet and it is owned by Google so there is more power in taking YouTube videos and embedding them within your blog posts.

The currency of blog posts is text, the words that Google is going to match up with what people are searching on and then send traffic to your website. What’s also important is to break up that text periodically and not just have it be a text of words. We’re not pulling up a Wikipedia page or a dictionary page and it’s just text. You want to provide a dynamic piece of content and Google pays attention not only to how many images are within it or are there quotes breaking it up.

 

For any of you that have gone to see our blog posts on Podetize.com for this show or for The Binge Factor, Tracy’s show interviewing top podcasters about what makes their show bingeable, you will go to those posts and you’ll see the text is all broken up between quotes, images with captions, YouTube videos and in some cases, you would embed the video of your podcast. Why would you do that? People are going to come to your blog posts on your website who didn’t know you and didn’t know you had a show. They got there because they searched something on Google and Google gave your post as a result.

They clicked, boom, they’re on your website. There, they can watch if they want to, they can listen or read, but sometimes, even your podcast listeners who regularly listen to the podcast will hear you describing something, or they hear you laughing at something, maybe there’s a facial expression and they’ll say, “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I got to go see that.” They’re going to go to your webpage and watch the video. When you have a video embedded in your blog posts, there are a few things that happen.

Number one, Google ranks that post as a higher quality post. The keywords that you rank on are going to rise up and be higher in the ranking for that keyword phrase than it would be if you didn’t have a video. Plus, it knows that the video that’s embedded is a YouTube video because they can tell that. They own YouTube. That gives you even more points in the ranking system. That’s one of the important reasons. Those of you that are not recording your episodes as video, you can still do this. I have a podcast I’m a part of. It’s not my show, but I play a regular role in it because I enjoy it.

Frequently, we’re talking about some current event, or responding to a news article, or a video on YouTube is the impetus for it, where someone’s giving a video presentation on something. This language and communication show, there’ll be a video on YouTube that’s not a video we recorded, it’s just a video we’re talking about.

We take the embed code for that and embed that video in our blog post for the episode. You can do that. You can embed multiple videos if you’re talking about related things or referencing different things. They don’t have to be your own video. Even embedding somebody else’s video in your blog post is going to make your blog posts more desirable in the eyes of Google.

You're not losing anything by having people watch a YouTube video on your website instead of going to YouTube and watching it. In fact, there's even more value for you. Click To Tweet

Some people say, “Why do I want to embed a video on my website? I want it to count as a play on YouTube. I want people to subscribe to my YouTube channel. I want them to go to the channel. I want to send people to YouTube, not to my website.” I want to dispel this myth or belief right away because you want to have that video on your website somewhere, even if it’s on a video gallery page, although having videos within blog posts with other texts, other references, other images and quotes is going to serve you better than just having one gallery page of all your videos, but putting your videos on your website in any way is going to serve you.

When you put a video on your website from YouTube and it’s embedded there, when somebody watches it on your website, it still counts as a play in the stats for your video on YouTube. It doesn’t matter that they watched it on your website and then watched it on YouTube. Within that window of the YouTube video is the opportunity and the button for people to subscribe to your YouTube channel, even though they’re watching it on your website.

From a functional perspective, you’re not losing anything by having people watch a YouTube video on your website, as opposed to going to YouTube and watching it. In fact, there’s even more value for you. We always look here at Podetize the metrics of websites, the Google Analytics, all sorts of different data points about your website to understand how sticky is your website, how many people are visiting it every month, how many unique people. There is a very important metric of how long they spend on your website. They have a stat in Google Analytics that’s the average time people spend on your website. Obviously, we want that time to be higher.

We have some podcasters that have the average time people are spending on their website is over twenty minutes, which on the average website, it’s seconds, it’s not even minutes. When you have content for people to consume on your website, including YouTube videos and people using that track player and playing the audio for your podcasts, even though they’re playing a YouTube video and that YouTube video is streaming in from YouTube to your website, they’re still sitting on your webpage or your blog posts watching it.

The longer they stay there, Google records that information and that increases your average of time each visitor is spending on your website. This is the hidden power of embedding YouTube videos on your website, is that you’re going to make your website more sticky. People that arrive there, no matter how they’re getting there, whether it’s from Google search, or a link from another site or they saw something on social media and went to your website, it doesn’t matter, but once they get there, you’ve got more content for them to experience.

The user experience is very dynamic. With the typical blog posts that we create for our clients, when they get to that post, they can watch, listen or read. Usually, they do a combination of two of those three. It’s not just any one. I talked to a lot of people in the industry and they don’t understand the power of YouTube videos.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a podcaster that’s not publishing video. With whatever subject you’re talking about, I guarantee you, there is a YouTube video out there that exists that is relevant to the subject that you’re talking about, so even serving that up to your site visitors is going to provide them value, and Google is going to reward you for it through your keyword rankings being higher because the quality of your page content is more dynamic, has more layers to it, and it’s going to help you be seen and be found.

A lot of times when people talk to me, prospective podcasters or existing podcasters, they want support with being heard by more people, with getting more listeners for their show, with helping their show become more well-known, more easily found, and they often get surprised when I start talking about things regarding their website, their blog posts or video.

They’re all related and they all help each other, so even if you’re a podcaster that doesn’t publish your own videos, I don’t care if you’re talking about tax accounting, real estate investing, life coaching, sports, human resources, speaking from the stage, divorce, marriage, I guarantee you, you do a little Google or YouTube searching, you’re going to find some video relevant to that you could put on your website and offer that as a resource for your listener and make your site more sticky and more of a resource in the ads of Google. Ultimately, that’s going to help you be seen by more people.

That’s the big message, pretty short and sweet. I don’t want to belabor it or beat a dead horse, but if you’re not using video or embedding YouTube videos of some kind into your website or blog posts for your episodes, I highly recommend you start doing it. You’re going to see a lift in your metrics and analytics for your website and your podcast. More people are going to end up finding you, being aware of what you do and become a part of your community as a result. I can’t highly recommend it enough.

 

If you have any questions about this or any interest in learning more about it, or seeing an example of one of these pages, I will invite you to come to Podetize.com to the Feed Your Brand page for this show. Click on any of our blog posts and you’re going to see how we do this. Look around on other sites, there are sites that are good resource websites. You’re going to find a lot of them are doing this as well because it has a lot of power in it. It’s just not understood.

One final tip. You’re going to post videos on social media, that’s great. They like it if you upload them natively, although you can post the link from YouTube. I would always recommend that even if you have a short video clip of something of yours, you always make the first comment in your social media posts. Bring people back to your website where they could consume the whole video or the whole episode, or maybe the blog post for that episode.

Don’t just send people right from social media out to YouTube. That does YouTube a favor and the social media platform a lot of good, but it doesn’t help you as much. Drive that traffic through your own website, it’s another little tip. Thanks everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode. We’ll be back with another one.

 

Important Links

• Podetize.com
• The Binge Factor

 

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