What content format is best for SEO? (text vs video)

[Saito]

I have a homepage article written and up, but am also turning my site's articles into separate videos to submit to Youtube, etc.

What are the pros and cons of text content vs video content on landing pages as it applies to SEO traffic?

My guesses (your thoughts too, please):

* It seems like it might be easier to rank the text-only version, as there are more keywords to be found in the article's text.

* I am guessing you can still rank pages with video as long as there is at least a little bit of keyword-laden text on the site? I'm thinking the video pages could have 300 words of text each.

* I could try sending traffic to a text-only version, then repeating with a video version of the page and see which gets more optins or longer time on the page. I'm sure people have their preferences and the only way to know is to test, but any general observations would be helpful to know.

* A Video showing with some text above it and the bulk of the article below it is a third alternative (and others I'm missing?)

Feel free to chip in here and add any Questions or Answers of your own on the topic of Text vs Video content for SEO purposes.

Thanks!

[thatkeywordguy]

You can still rank a page without text. But why shoot yourself in the foot.

Might as well put up 300 words and give G what they want

[watson229]

Both the content formats have their own pros and cons. As far as I am concern vidoe format is much better than text format because it takes a lot of time for readers who read the blog or the article. still they are not much cleare about the idea behind that article or blog. but viedeo has visual impact on readers.Its time saving but sometimes it seems hard to post videos everytime.

[kengperapol]

Google wants text more than just video. But videos are more user friendly. You may use both of them to gain love from both Google and people.

[Charan]

Here is 5 tips of content format:
1) Always use lowercase.
2) Always use a hyphen or dash to separate words and never use underscores or spaces.
3) Always use keywords throughout the entire URL and never use GUID's.
4) Try to keep your content one to two folder levels deep.
5) Never use special character.

By: DHost

[mickmccrory]

You have a good idea about split testing and see what your visitors choose. After all it's all about creating the best experience for your visitors.

[Brendan Mace]

Depends on the kind of text content that you use. If you properly optimize your <h1> tags and bold LSI keywords, then text can be pretty powerful.

Videos cause your vistors to remain on the page longer though. Which really helps your rankings. I like to use a combination of both.

[prcys]

As text and video both together can be more helpful. As place less time video in the form of summary of your text. So this way you provide facility to your visitors as person who has no time for reading stuff, he/she can understand the matter just by seeing the video and can give their reviews. And people who want to get the detailed information, they can get it by reading the whole stuff.
Though this is not possible for all content but you can do this in whichever it is possible.

[webin]

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Thanks

[Saito]

Both it is! You guys are right...it doesn't hurt to add 300 words when I already have a full article (video script) written.

Any thoughts on showing the FULL article as well as a video? Sounds like a third option to test.

And I am guessing the way to test results from SEO traffic is to note when the page is like i want it to be, then sit back and wait till what, 100 visitors visit, then measure results? Then repeat this 2 more times to test the other 2 versions of the page? Just curious how few visitors is enough to be a decent test so i can get more testing done per thousand visitors.

Thanks!

[xSEO247x]

i would say use both and have at least 500 words on homepage.

[TBInternetMarketing]

I try to have at least 750-1000 words in my articles, so yea text definitely.
I'm sure it's possible, but it would be really tricky to rank a video only site.

[Pyramid Linkers]

Google loves text content. Video are great (youtube especially) but, you should always add at least a 100 word description when optimizing on a video site and at least 300 words when adding a video to your blog. Google ranks content based on how relevant it appears to the search engine. Keyword dense text is more likely to appear relevant.