Video Blogging Is Awesome (But it’s Not Everything)

Video blogging (or vlogging) can make the work of maintaining a business blog less daunting for those who aren’t natural writers. Instead of waxing poetic in writing about your niche, you create an editorial calendar for video tips, and then shoot as many videos as possible in one or two sessions.

Vlogs are easy to edit, versatile enough to repurpose across multiple channels, and they’re even easier to consume than traditional blog posts.

If you’re thinking about starting a video blog but unsure if it’s right for you, I think you’ll find this article very helpful.

Here’s the short answer: Yes, you should definitely be producing video content, and vlogging is a great way to enhance your overall content strategy. But video blogging alone won’t get the job done. You still need need a holistic approach that involves other types of content, including traditional blogs, visuals, and podcasting.

Read on for my full take.

Video Blogging by the Numbers

First, let me take a moment to highlight how impactful video blogging can be for your business and personal brand.

The vast majority vlogs are hosted on video-sharing platforms, like YouTube. In fact, just 8% of traditional blog posts contain a video. But articles with videos get 70% more traffic than blogs without them. This is based on a recent study from Semrush.

Semrush also found that video was the most successful type of content produced last year.

A separate study published on Statista found that online videos have a 92% audience reach globally. This includes:

• Music videos
• Comedy videos
• Live streams
• Tutorials and how-to videos
• Educational videos
• Product reviews
• Vlogs and influencer videos
• Sports clips and highlights

Here’s something else to consider. A whopping 92% of marketers say that they’re happy with the ROI of their video efforts.

I could go on and on all day about vlogging numbers. But I think I’ve made my point. Video marketing, especially in the form of vlogging, is an extremely powerful tool and can really enhance your overall content strategy.

Pro Tips For Video Bloggers (and How to Maximize Your Effort)

Video blogging might seem like a daunting task, especially if you’ve never done it before. But it’s actually much easier than you realize. And one of my favorite parts about vlogging is that a single session can produce a month’s worth of content.

Here are some tips that you should keep in mind when you’re getting started with vlogging:

• Always look for ways to repurpose your content–like turning a blog post into a video blog, or a video blog into a blog post. You can even splice your vlogs and use them in email blasts or social posts.
• Record all of your podcast episodes in video format. While this won’t be a traditional video blog, it still enhances your overall video marketing strategy and reaches your audience in multiple formats.
• Create an editorial calendar for your vlog – strategize content for one short vlog per week for a minimum of three to six months.
• Shoot ALL your video blogging content in one or two sessions – that way, it’s done and not hanging over your head.

Incorporating Video Content With Your Website Blog

To kill two birds with one stone, I strongly recommend uploading your vlogs to YouTube first, and then embedding them into your website blog posts. This enhances your visibility on the top two search engines in the world.

People can find you on YouTube when they’re browsing for video-specific content. But your written blogs with embedded video can also be discovered in the SERPs.

Once you’ve filmed and published the blog on YouTube, all of the heavy lifting has essentially been done. Now it’s just a matter of making some slight tweaks to fit your desired format (like your website blog).

It’s a great way to get new content on your site and get the ball rolling fast with social media.

If you don’t feel like writing anything, just transcribe the text of your vlogs and make sure the transcriptions are keyword rich so Google has no trouble figuring out what your content actually is.

Each post that includes the transcribed SEO-friendly text helps with SEO by adding content and new page URLs that contain keywords. This gives your site an opportunity to grow on a regular basis, providing instant information to customers and a heads-up to the search engines.

I also recommend picking  a theme for your vlogging posts. Make sure the theme is also not just search engine friendly, but also good for readers/customers/anyone who stumbles upon your site.

Video Blogging Drives Engagement, and it’s Highly Shareable

Vlogging drives connection with your audience.

By setting up your blog to feed into Facebook—for example, announcing on Facebook when you make a really cool video post and then linking back to it—you will inspire quality discussions around topics relevant to your business, not just marketing hype.

Social media is most useful when based on themes and quality content, not “me, me, me” brochureware. Add Twitter to the mix (if you can find a valid reason to do so, like announcing mortgage rates, product launches, or mentioning recent posts) and you start to have an even deeper strategy. People will be more likely to link to your blog and amazing content when they see how social and authoritative you are.

People can even share clips from vlogs on Reddit, TikTok, and other viral platforms. Google will also see your “citations” all over the web and social sphere. Now write an optimized, mobile-friendly, multimedia news release about your video blog to complete the loop. Video is the wave of the future, as people seek to read less and less.

But Remember, Video Blogging Isn’t Everything

Is building a blog with video tips the end all, be all answer to your social media woes? Unfortunately, no. All the vlogging tips in the world aren’t going to do much for you if you’re not creating a video blog as part of an integrated internet marking strategy.

While many people are promoting social media techniques – creating a blog, making a Facebook page, etc. – mostly as a branding and general traffic building tool, there is a direct connection with social media and search engine optimization. Getting more people to link to you improves search rankings and therefore increases leads and sales. By encouraging content and conversations about you on blogs, YouTube, Facebook, and more, you can further enhance your Google ranking success.

Of course, creating a video blog is a big part of the world of Deeper Clicks! Vlogging is surprisingly simple, and is a great value add when you’re talking about enhancing your blog and your social media presence.

Every vlog post, like every blog post, should give you an SEO advantage, both by adding content and URLs to your site that contain keywords and growing your site on a regular basis. But as mentioned above, that’s not all. As part of that integrated internet marketing strategy, your awesome vlogs, blogs, and podcasts should also be making the rounds, attracting attention, and inspiring loads of conversation that will bump your rankings up even more.

Final Thoughts on Video Blogging

By creating a video blog, you add more engaging pages to your site and will consequently see your search engine rankings go up. When you add the transcribed text of your videos to your site’s blog, Google will see your new pages as credible content. By adding video, you can participate on YouTube and will be taking part in two of the main social platforms, blogging and YouTube (both of which allow users to comment).

Think you have nothing to talk about on video? Think again! With some creativity, any of the content ideas for blog posts can apply to video.

Just make sure you don’t put all of your eggs into the video blogging basket. You should use vlogging as a tool, and mix it in with traditional blog posts, visual content, and of course, podcast episodes.