This is a development designed to improve the accessibility of video content to users of YouTube and to enhance the potential for videos to achieve higher search page rankings.
We think that key moments could prove to be a key asset for video producers. So how does it work?
Creating a timeline
In a recent post on the Google blog titled “Search helps you find key moments in videos”, Prashant Baheti, the company’s Product Manager for Search, commented on how difficult it has been for YouTube visitors to access specific information within a video, or even to know that it’s there.
He explained: “There are a lot of ways that Search helps you discover visual, textual, and even audio information, from finding the most useful podcasts to understanding elements within images. But what if what you’re searching for is inside a video? Videos aren’t skimmable like text, meaning it can be easy to overlook video content altogether.”
The key moments feature works rather like a virtual bookmark, allowing the video creator to highlight particular points in a video through the use of timestamps. This makes it easy for viewers to find links to specific content in a video that will be of interest to them. Google search algorithms will additionally present these videos in search results.
Prashant Baheti mentions how this will help when “you search for things like how-to videos that have multiple steps, or long videos like speeches or a documentary…”
That’s true, and we can envisage a wide range of other applications for this new Google feature.
Why is this so useful?
Many videos posted by businesses on YouTube are there to tell a story. For instance, a manufacturer may wish to take the viewer through different stages in their production process or an educational establishment through its range of courses and extracurricular activities.
For tourism destinations and tour operators, the key moments feature could also be a real asset, since they will frequently have a wide variety of visitor attractions, leisure activities and accommodation facilities to cover in their video content.
The potential list of video content categories and the industry sectors that could benefit is extensive. This is a new feature and its value in terms of enhancing the user experience and the search results potential of videos that adopt key moments needs to be tested and analysed.
When describing our video marketing services on the BBI Brandboost website, we state that: “Video marketing can offer any business a concise channel to promote brand identity and public awareness, while delivering concise and relevant information to the desired audiences.”
Key moments could prove to be an excellent method of highlighting this information and we are currently assessing its effectiveness for the benefit of our clients. Watch this space…