Video SEO: How It Failed and Succeeded

In early 2012 we tried an experiment. We did some research that indicated the quickest way to get SEO traffic for a new website was in the realm of video SEO. Google returns video results in the top 10 frequently. These videos are always much easier to rank on the first page than content of other types.

So, we figured, why not try some video SEO?

We found a company that said they could get our video content to rank quickly. We sent them videos and they went to work.

We stopped this strategy after just a few months. Overall the strategy was a failure. (That’s why we stopped). But there were a few successes.

1) Immediate Leads

Immediately upon beginning the campaign, we started seeing videos fly up the rankings. And leads starting flowing in.

These leads, in the beginning, actually generated a couple of demos. No accounts though.

2) Continuing Leads

We haven’t done video SEO for well over a year and yet we still get 10 – 15 leads every week from video SEO sources. These leads click an embedded link in the video file that directs them to a landing page. They fill out this landing page for a piece of content.

There are still 10-15 of these people filling out forms every week, and again, the campaigns haven’t been going for 15 months or more.

Wow.

That’s a cool campaign.

So Why Did We Stop?

The leads were flowing. They are continuing to flow…over a year after the campaigns stopped. So why did we stop?

Because the leads were terrible.

See, the thing will call tracking is that our clients have to be in the United States or Canada. The leads we received via video SEO were from Pakistan, India, and other far flung nations. There is nothing wrong with these countries. They’re beautiful places with beautiful people. But they aren’t leads for LogMyCalls.

95% of the leads we received from our video SEO campaigns were from overseas and thus, were worthless leads to us.

Is this experience unique to us? I’m curious to read your comments.