Video reviews of your products and services are among the most powerful and influential marketing tools you can have on the web. People are attracted to video content, and customers often see video reviews as the most helpful, authentic, and trustworthy type of recommendations online.
A HubSpot “Digital Consumer Trends Report” found that 53% of people want more video content. As Mimi An, Hubspot’s Market Research and Competitive Intelligence team lead says, "Consumer preference for video is real, whether you’re on board or not."
This holds true whether those videos are available on your website, YouTube, Google, or social media. In fact, displaying video reviews across those, and other channels is an important tactic to boost brand awareness and visibility.
Video reviews on YouTube optimize incredibly well in a Google search and are often prominently displayed on the page one search results. By adding user-generated product review videos to your own branded YouTube channel, you will significantly improve your search results and your conversions.
Just as importantly, video reviews for the Seller and video reviews for the Product can help answer two of the three critical conversion questions: “Do I trust this seller?” and “Do I trust this product?” When shoppers see recorded proof that other customers have had a good experience, they gain trust in your brand, and their likelihood of making a purchase increases.
As you can see, leveraging these five benefits of video reviews will have a significant impact on your entire marketing strategy, from branding and SEO all the way through the main goals of increasing traffic and conversion on your site.
Now, let’s dive a little deeper and go through each of these reasons, one by one:
Yes. Studies have shown that it is 50x easier to achieve a page one ranking on Google with video. Google knows that searchers looking for reviews of products and companies are drawn to video; therefore, high-quality videos that have proven to be helpful and unbiased are often featured near the top of search results.
This makes video one of the most effective SEO tools available. When your customers and users are consistently creating new reviews of their experiences and posting them online, the odds of those videos showing up in the top search results continually increases.
When Google sees that people are talking, watching, and learning about your products through video, it indicates that new users will most likely be helped by those same videos and discussions, causing Google to serve them even higher.
Likewise, when searchers see that video reviews are available for your products, that immediately starts to build trust for your brand in their minds.
Seeing proof that other people have used your products and have taken the time to record a review moves your brand from an unknown quantity to one that the searcher can now see is known by other users. This helps move prospective customers further along in their buyer journey, from discovery into consideration.
Yes, video reviews increase organic traffic in three important ways:
Each of these metrics improves your SEO, which is foundational to generating organic traffic.
As discussed above, Google often features videos in top search results. When those videos are hosted directly on your site, searchers are provided a direct line to your page.
They can feel comfortable clicking through to your site, because they know they are getting an honest review from a previous customer. Once again, this builds trust, because your company has shown itself to be open in displaying candid reviews from users.
At the same time, you benefit from the traffic. There are no stops between the search engine results page (SERP) and your site. Therefore, you have succeeded in helping potential customers arrive at the spot where you most want them: on your site, “in” your store, where they can easily move from watching reviews to your product pages.
Yes, when you have a mix of video and text-based reviews, you create content variety, which attracts different types of people. By providing multiple types of social proof you are helping shoppers find the answers they seek in the form that they prefer. This will attract more visitors to your site, who will spend significantly more time on your pages.
More visitors spending more time on your site is one of the fundamental building blocks of search engine optimization. Remember that Google wants to provide its users with the answers those users want. Google wins when a searcher discovers the knowledge they were seeking.
Some people want to get their answers and knowledge from written content. Others prefer video. When you have a variety of content available for shoppers to choose from, you also make it easier for Google to serve up answers to searchers’ questions in multiple forms.
And of course, the more time that shoppers spend on your site, the greater the likelihood that they will make a purchase, and, the higher Google may rank you in search. As customers engage with the user-generated content you display, their trust in your brand and comfort with your offerings will continue to grow.
Your video reviews can be shared in several strategic locations, including your website, YouTube, Google, Shopper Approved, and throughout social media, creating a widespread, positive brand presence. Potential customers who may not be searching for you will still have the chance to come across videos featuring your brand in their social feeds, on YouTube, or elsewhere.
This means that video reviews can put your brand in places online where your marketing may otherwise not show up.
You may not have the budget to buy social ads, but a video review from a customer can be shared by that customer with their friends and followers on various platforms.
Video reviews on your company’s YouTube page as well as the video creator’s page gives you a presence on one of the web’s most highly-trafficked sites, without the need to spend money buying ad time or creating commercials. A research study by Google found that 90% of people discover new brands or products via YouTube.
Video reviews can be emailed out to prospects by your salespeople; featured in a hero spot on your homepage; and even shared during discussions with your audience on forums, in social groups, or via direct message.
People who may not read a written review unless they are actively researching a product or seller will often still watch a short video review. This plants your brand in the mind of potential customers so that when they do shop for products in your category, you can be top-of-mind.
In short, video reviews give you the opportunity to create an expanded footprint across the modern internet, where users love video, and where websites and search engines love to feature videos for their audiences and users.
As viewers see other users demonstrating a product in a video review, this visual proof promotes a high level of trust for your product and brand. Videos also create the potential for viewers to form an emotional connection with the product. This combination of logic (trust) and emotion forms two triggers that make shoppers more likely to buy.
This can benefit your website and store in two ways:
The biggest hurdle to completing a sale is gaining the trust of the buyer. Trust in the product to provide the solution they need; in the manufacturer to build a quality product; in the delivery methods; in the idea that this purchase is the best investment of their money; and most of all, in you, your company, and your website as the seller.
Video reviews forge a shortcut to this trust by providing social proof in the form of actual users speaking on their experience buying from you and using your products or services. They give shoppers the online equivalent of seeing another person put your product in their cart and walk to the register to check out.
The shopper gains trust, and you gain a sale.
Video reviews are a powerful form of content that every online business can, and should, leverage as part of their marketing strategy.
Video reviews can also be syndicated and displayed on sites such as YouTube, social media, and Shopper Approved, giving your brand a broad footprint throughout the internet.
Ready to take your video review strategy to the next level by soliciting, collecting, and displaying video reviews from buyers after a purchase? Read on to see how Shopper Approved can help.
With Shopper Approved, your customers can leave a video review directly from the review survey that is sent to them after a purchase. This makes it convenient and easy for them, which increases the likelihood that they will leave a video review.
Once you begin collecting and approving video reviews, Shopper Approved sends your approved videos with a transcript for SEO directly to your YouTube channel. And you can share them on your social channels as well, further boosting your brand’s presence, visibility, and trust.
Authentic video reviews from your customers are automatically search optimized and syndicated to your website, YouTube, and your Shopper Approved Certificate, making them highly visible in search, and appealing to shoppers and Google alike.
This increase in search visibility will create more clicks and traffic to your site, and generate more trust and conversions on your product pages, making video reviews an integral part of the Traffic & Conversion Suite.
Learn about how our other solutions complement video reviews to help grow your business:
Seller Ratings
Product Reviews
Q&A
Reputation Management
Website Security
Social Evidence
Recommended Further Reading