We’ve been hosting SEOmoz's video for a little over a year now. During that time SEOmoz has published about 60 Whiteboard Fridays. One thing to know about Wistia (in addition to our penchant for ping pong and video SEO) is that we have an unhealthy obsession with video analytics. As sort of an "anniversary" gift for the Mozzers we decided to analyze their series and see what kind of juicy statistical nuggets we could pull out of the data.
Creating a web video series is an amazing way to engage with and build an audience, but it's difficult to find metrics or benchmarks to define success. Given SEOmoz's amazing transparency in everything they do, we thought it would be useful to create a resource that other companies could use to "see inside" a successful web video series.
Below, you'll find the full infographic, but here are a few highlights:
- Over 132,000 unique people have watched at least one SEOmoz video...10x the number of SEOmoz customers!
- Loyal viewers (those that have watched more than one video) spend more than 6x the amount of time viewing SEOmoz videos than casual viewers (those that have watched only a single video).
- When someone watches a single SEOmoz video, they are twice as likely to watch another SEOmoz video than someone who hasn't viewed any of their videos.
Improve Engagement Metrics with Video
One of the most surprising findings from the data was that users who watched more than one video, the average engagement time was 35 minutes. Even those visitors who only watched a single video were engaged an average of 6 minutes, well above the average time on site for the typical SEOmoz visitor.
Consider the effect this has for engagement metrics such as time on site, page views, and even conversions.
Some tips to help increase engagement with video:
- Suggest Similar and/or related videos on the same page. How many times have you watched one video, and then instantly watched another when one was available? Give this option to your visitors and they will take advantage of it.
- Inspire viewers to want to investigate further with a cliffhanger or a preview. Or use the video to highlight special sections of your site that they can visit on their own.
- Provide a user-friendly landing page that contains a full list of all the videos on your site. This makes a great content hub.
- Encourage visitors to sign up for email notifications when new videos in the series are released.
Without further adieu, "The Road to Moz"...
Hi guys. Great post. We started using Wistia for our own videos after seeing you on SEOmoz and it's a good platform. For an agency also doing SEO videos seeing the above stats is a great benchmark to aim for. Although it may take us a while to build up to the 0.5 million views mark...
Let me see how you guys are using wistia in your SEO blog or website.
By the way ... love your website logo (my son started drawing like this when he was 2 years old ... ).
Sure thing our videos are at https://www.koozai.com/blog/category/videos/
As for the logo the simplest design is always the best ;)
Yes ... thats why we also choose simple logo for our social bookmarking service as well.
Some serious time clearly went into this post- thought provoking stuff here, thanks!
I'm wondering if in compiling this report, you noticed any interesting correlations between the length of a video and viewership? Are shorter videos more likely to be watched, or to be the video that gets the viewer engaged for the first time? Is there a noticable cut-off point in video length where viewers become unlikely to actually watch the entire video?
If anyone has done any observations on this, it'd be really useful to know what the "sweet spot" appears to be in terms of the amount of time people are willing to spend on video content.
Aaron, great question!
While we didn't incoporate data on this topic in this infographic, we did a study a while back called "Does length matter? It does for video" which shows how different length videos are actually watched. You can see the full post here:
https://wistia.com/blog/does-length-matter-it-does-for-video/
The moral of the story is that shorter is generally better for holding people's attention and getting the best engagement.
YES! I can't tell you how many times I've been on youtube watching part 1, and had a hard time finding part 2-7. A playlist for multiple parts. Always. And link to it :)
A great way to ensure viewers know about your other videos is to embed thumbnails of up and coming videos inside the video they are watching (just for a short time so as not to distract0 and then add annotations with URL in YouTube to take them straight there...
"When someone watches a single SEOmoz video, they are twice as likely to watch another SEOmoz video than someone who hasn't viewed any of their videos."
Lol... I'd say that someone who has viewed a video obviously views more videos than those who haven't viewed any... It's like saying someone who drives a car is likely to drive more miles than someone who doesn't drive a car. :)
Thumbs up to you ...
Love your analysing power ... lollzz
I believe I am one of that 0,01% who saw all WBF from the beginning... :D
Wonderful Infographic that show the power of video on Internet.
One thing which I really like about the whiteboard Friday is Video Transcription
This one really helps to those people who have the difficulty in understanding the fast english.
As a result you can get more and more non english speaker.
In Video Transcription you can also add link of similar kind of videos.
I always prefer to use all kind of media and this one includes slide a share or google docs as well. This can make your task quite easy if you are a service provider.
Awesome infographic with the post. Do you tag and submit your infographics, too? Jay
Awesome post!! Thanks for the tips, and I was abolutely shocked that people who watch 5+ videos represented a greater percentage than 3 and 4. That just proves how great your content is. We'll definitely be implementing some of these strategies when we branch into our video series.
That is just amazing. I am stunnedthat you have driven that much traffic in such a short time to these types of video that are educational, but not mandatory. They should be mandatory for SEOer's.
I found Wistia from the SEOMOZ best apps for 2010. I have created and hosted videos on several sites and it successfully drives traffic.
I created a how to recycle paint video..which is industry specific to the website. The page and video are ranked highly for "recycle paint".
If you publish the same video on youtube; the youtube version will rank higher in video search. i suggest creating a slightly different version for youtube.
I love the white board Fridays, I think that was how I originally stumbled on SEOmoz. I do like the way you put a transcript below, as sometimes I cannot watch with the volume on.
Hello Ben Ruedlinger fantastic post really perfect way to explain how and how much a vedios can take you to the path of success. We all know about the rapid growth of interactive learning, promotion and marketing and we have YouTube as best example for that, Well I am totally agree with the points of adopting a video sharing on our site as it can be very beneficial and can be proved as a game changer for a site's success.
Nice post mate and great infographic, video is highly important in any niche where you have to convey youself as a expert and an industry leader.
I notice alot of clients in the pharma niche look for video as a way to convey been a trust worthy source of information.
Very Interesting. I would love to see some numbers on the traffic source of video viewers. For example Are people being reffered (primarily) to seomoz videos from search engines, or from social sources?
Hey mate great work!
I believe this is the best way to say Thanks for all the efforts SEOmoz team put in to produce amazing videos for the community.
As far as suggestions are concern its good but I have a doubt in one of them that is ‘suggesting related videos (probably like Youtube)’, I think the idea itself is great but this might reduce the rate of commenting and people might switch to another video and miss the comment communication which is a great learning point.
Community Commenting on videos and posts leads to different ideas and clear lot of confusions and misconceptions…
I am feeling proud and lucky to be one of 7.1% of who hardly miss any video by Whiteboard Friday as WBF is Awesome!
Hello Moosa Hemani nice comment but related video can help us to increase the visitors stay on the site I am agree that I will kill commenting and discussion upto some instance but it will prove very helpful when it comes to promotion as if anybody's site use vedios for presenting services or product than it is very necessary for them to show related videos to the services. As the best practice to increase the ROI is just to increase the stay of visitors.
Note - ( Irrelevant but important ) Using “Related Topic”, “Recent Updates”, “Most Popular Pages”, "Related Videos" have a very effective and important role in sites interlinking to enhance site performace.
Yes that's why there are so many wordpress plugins for similar post or that's why Linkwithin is so much popular.
If you have photos based blogs than believe me linkwithin or similar plugin can be boon to increase the page views and decrease the bounce rates.
Everyone does not belong to both groups (those who would comment and those who would watch other videos). The key is to have a selection of next actions such that every person can find the action that they want.
Let's say you have 5% commenting with no related videos. If I could get 5-10% of my audience to watch another video (a lower barrier than commenting) at the expense of 1% of those commenting...I would consider that a win.
Also, there is certainly no reason why someone who felt compelled to comment wouldn't make their comment and *then* go to a related video....win-win!
hmmm...I think I'm a little worried about myself now.
I totally thought everyone was as addicted to Whiteboard Friday as I am!
Which reminds me ...it's FRIDAY!!
Seriously though, the data is interesting in that it made me start to wonder why others viewing habits are so different to mine. Perhaps because those who watch just one video are largely non-industry people and do not connect with the content in the same way?
Regardless, this is a great post Ben, and an excellent demonstration of the quantity and quality of information that Wistia gathers for the benefit of its customers.
I'm off to grab a cuppa before this week's WBF appears!
Have a great weekend!
Thank you for your comments.
Let's take a look at the data...specifically the "Untapped market" section. These are people that have watched at least one SEOMoz video. One of the most interesting things to me is the 42.4% of people that watched one video, but have never had a chance to watch another video.
To me, this implies that there is a good chance that they:
The interesting thing here is that there is an opportunity to take these folks who are just grazing the edges of the SEOMoz content community and expose them to more valuable content such that they become rabid consumers of SEOMoz content.
@ Sha
We all strive to get more and more knowledge and Friday is one of the best day to get it.
Such kind of weekly addition is quite important and help your readers to come back.
Video views by country I thought was a very telling statistic. Looks like SEOMoz should look at expanding their market towards a worldwide footprint for future growth. Just like most of us! :)
Yes that's why they are adding video transcription ... with this option they will cover more and more viewers.
Great post Ben.
Thanks for sharing the data. I'm sure I speak for a lot of people when I say we'd love to conitinue to see more great info on video with how much it's growing online, especially how it plays into SEO.
On a side note, we just started using Wistia for our new video strategy as well and I'm really liking how it's working and the quick responses I've gotten with questions.