Support Videos- need Guidance

RuchiPardal

Hi,

We would like to start uploading videos for support on our soon to be launched support centre interface. We wanted to know if we should use Youtube or Vimeo for something like this. From an SEO standpoint which video streaming software is better? If these videos get linked on blogs etc which video platform would give us stronger SEO juice? Awaiting your inputs

PreetSibia

Vimeo is better if you want to avoid unnecessary ads. Both YouTube and vimeo has same effect on SEO, but you can get more views if you use Youtube.

PhilNottingham

As the videos are support related, I assume that their basically to your product/service in some way. If your product is somewhat specific (e.g. a proprietry piece of software or unique product), then you actually want to make sure your videos are hosted securely on your site - so your users come to you specifically for support, rather than going to YouTube.com or Vimeo.com. If you use YouTube or Vimeo to host, they may outrank you for your own videos and you'll find very few users actively search for product support in YouTube or vimeo search.

This means either self hosting your videos, or using a secure third party provider. My personal preference of third party video hosting is Wistia (http://www.wistia.com) but there are loads of good ones out there.

The platform itself doesn't really affect SEO juice, but you will need to ensure anyone embedding the video on a blog also links back to your site as the embeds themselves won't directly pass PageRank.

I hope that's useful!

Doc_Sheldon

Phil makes a good point about holding your customers by self-hosting. I would say that it is something you should consider very carefully, though, as bandwidth issues could be a bear if your hosting isn't right for it. You need to consider the size and number of videos you'll be hosting, and the traffic they'll be receiving.

If self-hosting isn't the avenue you opt for right now, then I would recommend YouTube. They offer more traffic, as was mentioned, as well as decent tracking ability.

PhilNottingham

Hi Sheldon,

I'm afraid I completely disagree with your advice here. When i say "self hosting" this doesn't necessarily mean you have to host the content on your server - using a CDN will do the same job from an SEO perspective and not come with any of the bandwidth concerns.

However, if you don't want to self host, the alternative - as I mentioned - is to use a paid third party solution such as Vzaar, Wistia, Vimeo Pro, Brightcove, Ooyala etc... not YouTube

YouTube is essentially a social platform and can outrank you for your content if you're trying to drive traffic. Additionally, if you content isn't relevant for a YouTube audience - it'll do very poorly on the platform since the user engagements metrics will suggest that the content is substandard.

Doc_Sheldon

Hi, Phil-

Your points are well taken. Certainly, a CDN will handle the BW concerns, if a site owner is prepared to go that route. The alternatives you mention will certainly work, too, with the added benefit of not having to content with a 5 second ad on the screen.

But I think your concerns regarding YouTube doing poorly doesn't really hold water. If you self-host, either via CDN or on Vimeo, you'll undoubtedly be promoting the video in some fashion, on and off-page. Presumably, you'd do the same if embedding a YT video. So I see no difference in terms of traffic generation. Perhaps if you're depending upon YT for your traffic, but really, how many people do that? As for YT outranking the content, I would say if that happens, the content probably either went viral or there wasn't any meaningful promotion of the webpage undertaken.

We did a hangout the beginning of July, and embedded the YT video on our website. Our page is in the #2 slot, while the YT version is on the bottom of page 2. Aside from a couple of social mentions, we did very little to promote our page. http://www.google.com.mx/?gws_rd=cr#bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&ei=GJYGUtuzOuiqyAHr7IGIAQ&fp=7a8e48b9e5b6684f&hl=en&newwindow=1&pws=0&q=matt+siltala+on+infographics&sa=N&safe=off&start=10

Granted, the views it garnered are hardly noteworthy, so the example is far from definitive. But I'd wager that even if it had gotten 1,000+ views by now, we'd be able to easily outrank it. 30,000 might be a different story - 300,000 probably pretty tough.

My point is, while I accept that your options are good ones, and quite likely, are better in some circumstances, I think YouTube is still worth thinking about for some circumstances, too.

PhilNottingham

Hi Sheldon,

I've written about this extensively, but there are definite concerns about YouTube outranking your content and it can happen irrespective of the number of views garnered. Raw views are not a ranking factor on YouTube - so virality is not the only instance of a YouTube video outranking the page it's embedded on. Imagine, for example, how Google should calculate which page should rank if the page is embedded across multiple sites all optimised for the same keyword.

Now..I'm not saying YouTube is never the appropriate hosting solution - far from it - but I am saying that the reasons you would choose self hosting preclude YouTube from being a viable alternative. YouTube should only be used where content is consciously created for the platform, in order to take advantage of the social visibility it offers.

For more information - first watch this video: http://wistia.com/learning/advanced-seo-with-distilled

then read the following posts:

http://moz.com/blog/the-marketing-value-of-youtube

http://moz.com/blog/building-a-video-seo-strategy

http://moz.com/blog/hosting-and-embedding-for-video-seo

I hope that helps clarify things.