Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have seen a huge increase in people watching videos from Reels and TikTok. Are you the type of person who also likes these new trends? If so, you’ll be glad to know that Google is already working on ways to show short videos in search results more often.
Reels and TikTok Videos Soon to Be On Google Search Results
This statement came from Danielle Marshak, Google Product Manager, in a podcast made by the Search Engine Journal website. She shared that the company is already realizing that videos are becoming more popular than ever before, mainly because this format is able to deliver so much more information in less time.
In fact, she is right: data released by Forbes in May 2020 already indicated an expectation that online videos will represent more than 82% of all internet traffic seen by consumers in 2022. In a video, we can see emotions, movement and tone of voice, elements that a text or an image could not deliver so clearly.
So far, we don’t have a standard short video concept. However, Marshak states that “short” videos are those that are less than 5 minutes long and recorded in a vertical proportion.
Videos on Google
We all know that Google has an optimized algorithm to crawl and organize every page of results. It’s amazing to see how accurate our searches are these days: no matter what topic we’re looking for, we can always find pages that answer our questions.
However, most of Google’s suggestions are just written content – that’s because Google is very good at reading and understanding text. Currently, Google’s search algorithm answered 74.3% of 5,000 questions, and of those answers, it had an accuracy rate of 97.4%.
In these search results, the search engine invariably also indicates some YouTube videos – since the portal was purchased by Google. In addition, the platform is also showing Google Web Stories for some countries (which work like Instagram stories, for example, and therefore already include videos).
But for now, that’s all. This is because videos are much more complex than text, which is actually one reason they can be richer than images and text.
Danielle said that Google has a few teams that are doing research on how crawlers can extract text/audio from a video to combine that information with some other elements, like character recognition and visual cues. By doing so, it would be easier for search engines to categorize them and display them as results. Soon, we may have news about this soon.
Do Consumers Really Want Videos?
Yes! According to a survey carried out by the Invideo platform and released in March 2022, as of 2020, consumers have increased their video consumption by 96%. Additionally, 9 out of 10 consumers said they would like to see more videos from brands and companies. It is estimated that by 2022, people will spend up to 100 minutes a day watching videos online.
How to prepare for videos on Google?
The data in this text indicates that yes, videos are a trend that is here to stay. In other words, this is the time to better understand how your brand or company could communicate through them – so when new features are available, you can get ahead.
Here are some short video ideas to explore:
- product videos;
- FAQ videos;
- Q&A sessions with
questions submitted by customers; - a day with the team;
- social trends;
- tutorials;
- easy tips.
And if you need help with your online marketing strategy, please contact us – we can help you think about your business as part of the digital world.