Ranking In Universal Search Results: Video Is The Secret

2024-03-25

Sarah Clow

Sarah Clow

Ranking In Universal Search Results: Video Is The Secret

Incorporating video into your articles is valuable because it enhances user engagement, reduces bounce rates, and increases readers' time on site. But as search results and modern SEO evolve, video's benefits extend far beyond enhancing website content. 

Data from the most recent Google Helpful Content updates have shown just how valuable video can be in protecting content as a unique result. Still, it also presents an enormous opportunity that many sites completely miss out on.

Other Benefits: Videos can also attract backlinks and social shares, boosting your website's authority and relevance in search results. 

Today you’ll learn:  

  • To integrate video into your articles easily and 2x your chances of appearing in Universal Search results

  • Effective ways to turn your blog content into engaging videos in just a few steps

  • How to make the video valuable in combination with your article and as an independently valuable piece of content on its own

Increase Search Rankings and Page Engagement 

Recently, Google has made it clear that diverse multimedia and rich content are what users want. This has led to the expansion of search results that span written text, video, rich data, images, news, and even audio—all on the same results page.

Written content is no longer enough to expect successful linear growth on almost any site. What’s more, AI-generated content has brought the cost of creating written content down to nearly zero. Anyone can produce and publish an article in minutes. 

Video provides a much richer and unique format of content that can complement written content and is protected from the broader definition that Google uses for “unique” content.

This is why every site with primarily written content should use video to protect, grow, and capitalize on Universal Search Results and adapt to emerging trends.


See The SEO Opportunity In Action


In the example below, the search query “how to build a backyard firepit” shows video results before anything else. 

how-to-build-a-backyard-fire-pit-Google-Search (1).png

Google places value in video for many reasons. With the rise of TikTok and more mobile users changing their behavior online, Google isn’t just choosing video over written content; they’re adapting because users prefer it. This led to Google incorporating Universal Search into the majority of the results pages for user queries. 

Takeaway: Articles don’t rank, content ranks, and articles featuring only written content are declining in rankings consistently with every Google update.

According to Skeepers, an article with a video is 53% more likely to show up on page 1 of Google search results than those without. Publishers must adopt a video-forward content strategy to encourage greater engagement metrics like: 

  1. Higher Chance of Ranking: Video content increases your likelihood of appearing on the first page of search results, offering a 50 times better chance than text-only content.

  2. Increased Click-Through Rate (CTR): Videos in search results yield a 41% higher CTR than text results on page one, which is attributed to engaging video thumbnails and rich results.

  3. Longer Average Time on Page: Video content can boost average time on page by up to 88%, enhancing page quality and favorability in search rankings.

  4. Increase in Quality Backlinks: Pages with video content receive up to 300% more backlinks, signaling higher content quality to search engines.

  5. More Organic Website Traffic: Leveraging platforms like YouTube for video content can increase brand discovery and product purchases, and proper optimization can drive organic traffic growth.

Boost Existing High-Ranking Content

If your articles are already performing well in search results, adding a video to these pages can further boost their visibility. Converting your top-ranking text content into videos and embedding them on the same pages allows you to capitalize on their success. This strategic move increases visibility in Google's video searches and carousels and unlocks opportunities for substantial traffic and revenue growth.

Outrank Competitors 

If you want to outrank your competitors, you need relevant videos on at least all your top-performing articles. Ideally, you will have a topical video for every article on your website, but if you’re just starting to incorporate video, start with

download (2).png

the highest-ranking article. Within Big Data Analytics, navigate to Content > Landing Pages > filter to view your pages with the most traffic and select your article to transform into video from there. 

If you have a high-ranking article with no video content, you can guarantee that if your competitor has a video on their article that targets the same topic, they will outrank you. 

Screen Shot 2024-03-21 at 2.28.24 PM.png


Video content enhances SEO, revitalizes older content, and drives increased user engagement, positioning you for success in competitive landscapes. 

How To Create Highly Engaging Videos Instantly 

Creating video content used to be a daunting task—time-consuming, costly, and requiring expertise in video editing tools. Now, thanks to AI, publishers can effortlessly generate captivating videos for their articles without the need for cameras or narration. Let’s walk through the simple steps to turn your articles into videos instantly: 

Step 1: Visit the Flickify icon from your Ezoic dashboard   

If you’re not an Ezoic user, you can access the tool at Flickify.com. Flickify harnesses AI technology to visually illustrate written content. It transforms articles into narrated videos, allowing users to select themes and media from its curated library or their own uploads. 

Step 2: Pick a creation method 

Step 1_123 Flickify_v1.gif


Flickify allows you to instantly generate videos by pasting a URL from a webpage, uploading a script or recording, pasting a Word document, or asking AI to generate a script based on your idea. 

If you have many articles to convert to video, you can use the bulk video creation tool that allows you to create multiple videos simultaneously by supplying URLs for text extraction or brief descriptions for AI-driven content creation. Additionally, Flickify offers an autopilot video creation feature and script transformations powered by AI to revolutionize content generation.

Step 3: Customize & edit your video 

Step 2_123 Flickify_v1.gif


Flickify will instantly generate a video using your creation method. Flickify will automate the best narration voice, match media and images to your content, and even suggest a theme. 

Experience natural-sounding voices indistinguishable from real humans, including the option to clone your own voice for narration. Personalize videos with AI-generated avatars, seamlessly transitioning between media slides and narrators. These recommendations serve as a foundation to further tweak to suit your vision.  

Step 4: Publish & share

Step 3_123 Flickify_v1.gif


Features Coming Soon

Flickify teases upcoming features to add even more value to the video creation journey, including the ability to pull from Google Analytics for bulk video creation and push rendered videos directly to YouTube.

Free Video Credits for Ezoic Publishers 

Are you ready to turn your top-performing written content into highly engaging videos? We’re introducing an exclusive offer for Ezoic publishers to convert any article they choose to video with free Flickify credits.  


For Publishers without Humix: Now is the perfect time to start if you're not already using Humix! Enable Humix today and receive a free Flickify credit to kickstart your video content journey.


For Publishers with Humix: Congratulations on your success with Humix! As a thank you for your continued support, we're offering you a complimentary Flickify credit for your top-performing article. Simply log in to your dashboard to claim your free credit and see your article come to life in video format.

Conclusion 

Incorporating video into your articles is essential for improving SEO and user engagement. Videos increase search rankings, boost click-through rates, extend average time on page, attract quality backlinks, and drive organic website traffic. Leveraging AI-powered tools like Flickify streamlines the video creation process, allowing you to transform written content into visually compelling videos quickly. With Flickify's upcoming features, such as integration with Google Analytics and direct publishing to YouTube, the future of video content creation is brighter than ever. Start creating engaging videos today to elevate your content strategy and stay ahead of the competition.




Sarah Clow

Written By: Sarah Clow

Sarah is an experienced publishing industry leader responsible for organizing independent, publisher-only events; including some of the largest ever held at Google. Sarah is Ezoic's Director of Marketing.

Featured Content

Checkout this popular and trending content

Using Analytics To Make More Money

Using Analytics To Make More Money

A revenue report can offer little to no value without truly understanding what it’s showing. See how audience behavior, UX metrics, and more is invaluable in context of revenue.

Announcement

Audience. The New King.

Audience. The New King.

See why content is no longer king and why your audience has taken its place. Discover why 2025 will be defined by this dramatic change.

Launch

Ezoic Unveils New Enterprise Program: Empowering Creators to Scale and Succeed

Ezoic Unveils New Enterprise Program: Empowering Creators to Scale and Succeed

Ezoic recently announced a higher level designed for publishers that have reached that ultimate stage of growth. See what it means for Ezoic users.

Announcement