Does it Matter for SEO if it’s Your Own Video or Someone Else’s?

This article was inspired by a client reaching out:

<blockquote>I wanted to see if you had any thoughts about what types of videos should and should not be included in our blogs.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Here are a few examples: Original video content by us or by a partner, or relevant content on YouTube, but not owned by us.</blockquote>

<blockquote>We understand that having video content is helpful in blogs, but we’re not sure about original vs. non-original specifically. Is a relevant video helpful for SEO regardless of its origin?</blockquote>

These are great questions! Here’s the answer if you're in a hurry:

Making your own videos can be a good look for your brand, but what matters most in terms of your website's SEO is:

• Video content that is high quality, helpful, and relevant to people visiting the web page it’s embedded on
• Video content that is optimized for search, speed and engagement so people can find and enjoy it

Here's some additional context:

Video content can help your website’s SEO

Any video content on your website (regardless of who owns it) can be good for SEO if it's relevant and helpful for your website visitors—especially when the videos are high quality and optimized for search.

Just make sure you have permission to use someone else's video on your site. If the embed code is available on YouTube that's a green light - though you should tread carefully if any commercial TV/movie footage is present.

Creating your own video content can boost brand credibility

Whether or not the content is produced and owned by your business is more of a brand consideration. Quality videos that you make yourself would likely convey a more positive impression of your brand to viewers.

Avoid low-quality video content

Don’t waste people’s time by adding a video just for the sake of having video content on the page. It’s not a magic potion. If you can’t create quality videos that actually help people, you’re better off using videos made by someone else, or not having any video content at all.

Keep the focus on your own content

If you embed your own YouTube videos you can add <code>?rel=0</code> to the end of the embed code. That way, at the end of the video it won’t display a bunch of suggestions from other people’s YouTube channels (increasing the odds that the viewer stays engaged with your content).

Optimize all video content on your website

Any video content on your website (and YouTube channel) needs to be:

• Optimized for Google Search
• Optimized for on-platform search (YouTube, Vimeo, etc)
• Suitable for the web page it’s on (don’t put an “about our company” video on a product page!)
• Marked up with the appropriate structured data
• In a format and size that won’t hurt your page speed

There’s plenty more to consider - use our guide to SEO for video content to get started!

<div class="post-note-cute">If you have questions about anything SEO related, don't hesitate to reach out: <a href="mailto:info@momenticmarketing.com">info@momenticmarketing.com</a></div>