SEO and video marketing take user intent up a level

©Aleksey Boldin via 123RF

This is by no means meant to jilt you, this is meant to scare you, to force your mind to a dark place, especially if you realise, like most publishers here in the southern African tip, you don't have video content, nor do you know how to create it or monetize it let alone optimise it or market it... But have no choice as this is the way of the future.

Now let's be fair and take into consideration we have more cell phones than we have people in SA (59,474,500 vs 50,586,757), and knowing that mobile search outranks desktop, and that there are indeed some severe algorithm penalties for non-mobile compliance, infact every single social platform we now use has an algorithm set to penalise us, it's so bad that even ad inventory is suffering & mobile advertising is a joke to say the least, but that doesn't change the fact that we are mobile-first, and social video is the micro moment we need to capitalise on.

But still, what the 4, 5 and 6 is a video micro moment.

Well, it's a... hmmm, it's a moment in time that happens in a... well, micro moment of time, there are many kinds of micro moments, they pop up in weird situations, like when you're driving on the N1 and see a billboard that reminds you of your in-laws arrival and suddenly you're on the hunt for the perfect apple pie recipe, that is a micro moment, triggered by causational* content or advertising, yet totally uncorrelated.

For relevance and in the light of giving you value and not confusion, I will look at the four most important "user intent" consideration when planning your video SEO strategy, and to reiterate, the user intent is the most important part of creating anything online, if you don't know the intent behind it, you'll likely not see any favourable results.

Micro moments you can bank your strategy on:

Micro moment one:

"I want to watch what I am in to"

• 53% of online video viewers watch to be entertained or inspired
  
• The "user intent" here is feeding passions and interests
  
• As a publisher your responsibility is to know your audience (KYA) not their demographics, so what kind of video content do they consume, what are they into, exactly?

Micro moment two:

"I want to know"

• 70% of millennial's will find a YouTube video on anything they want to learn
  
• The "user intent" here is learning, researching, and exploring
  
• As a publisher your responsibility is to know your audience (KYA) not their demographics, how can you access what they want to know and provide that content in video?

Micro moment three:

"I want to do"

• Youtube experienced YOY growth of 70% for "how to" videos
  
• The "user intent" here is seeking instruction and how to's
  
• As a publisher your responsibility is to know your audience (KYA) not their demographics, research will tell you what is working with how to's, but a prime example of great how to videos is Suzelle DIY, a classic South African twist to outstanding video marketing.

Micro moment four:

"I want to buy"

• Deciding what and how and where to buy, to learn about products or services that specifically interest the 18-34yr olds.
  
• The "user intent" here is deciding what and how and where to buy
  
• As a publisher your responsibility is to know your audience (KYA) not their demographics, I know I say this a lot, but whilst working on another client, I uncovered some interesting corroborating data to this; like did you know that social media drives 78% more new car sales and dealership choices in the purchasing journey of a new car? Phenomenal if you were a car dealer and could unlock this technique!

The symbiosis of all this is that if you want to have a meaningful role with content in your audiences online consumption, you best figure out who they are, why they came and left, when they come, what their journey is etc... '

As I own a beauty property, and nurture my social platforms, I know that YouTube experienced an unlikely trend, beauty content grew by a whopping 50% between 2014 and 2015. How to search went up 70% YOY. As an analyst I had an almost unfair advantage knowing that, as I grew my social audience without even trying hard.

Often its not about having access to the tools, as a fool with a tool is still very much a fool, the key here would be to ensure you had the correct team driving your content and SEO output that way you would the skills and the results.

Be there when your audience is looking for "instant gratification" and build long-term satisfaction in the process. You need to rank in organic search first, then you need to add some paid search, use intent and context when creating video content, align your advertising natively and you have the winning formula.

The splintered users purchasing journey is now scattered in to copious micro moments, infinite supply of choices and messages, so brands best be there if they want to compete in the video revolution, or your competitor will be.

This is how video killed the user identity and gave power to user intent with micro moments, but fear not for there are businesses like Clickass that can and will find the perfect route to getting your video strategy off the ground.

*A correlation between variables, however, does not automatically mean that the change in one variable is the cause of the change in the values of the other variable. Causation indicates that one event is the result of the occurrence of the other event; i.e. there is a causal relationship between the two events..