Google’s senior leadership group is exploring methods to include more short-form videos in search results, claiming that they are more clear, concise, and succinct in format for addressing specific questions. The insatiable consumer demand for short-form videos has prompted Google to enter the search game. Claims say that Google is working towards a mobile-specific carousel in the search engine results page (SERP) for short-form videos, such as TikTok and Instagram snippets.

But why does Google need this now when they already have complete control over all the searches? The answer is that this feature allows a user searching for a video to stay on the Google platform rather than being redirected to a native app to watch the movie. The web version of the video search results can be accessed by just clicking on it. To exit, they will have to use the back button, which will keep them on Google. Read more to know what lies ahead.

More Short-Form Videos In Google?

So, what do we mean by a “short” video? Experts define a “short” video as something that is less than five minutes long and filmed in a vertical aspect ratio for the purposes of this discussion. They claim that this approach can convey a lot of information in a short amount of time. Google is considering ways to make them more visible in search results because of the potential utility of short videos for searchers. This concept is concise where you can obtain a lot of knowledge in a short amount of time, as well as a variety of different points of view and opinions. Consequently, this type of information could be valuable for a variety of search queries and social media marketing agencies have been experimenting with how to show it to users more often.

What Types Of Short Videos Would Google Surface?

When social media marketing experts are asked for some examples of informational short videos, Google may surface on the search results page. For instance, imagine that you are looking for ideas to bake banana bread. And right now, you might see traditional recipes or you might see longer videos, but you could also see short videos, which could just give you a different style or perspective.

We must remember that the preferences of people are extremely varied. Some people prefer to read while some prefer listening to videos in detail and others prefer short videos. Hence, people like to have different options to get the type of information they would want to consume in the format that is most useful for them. But we are not sure of the exact different types of short videos since we are not there yet. But eventually, SEO agencies in Australia and around will see that the search engines will pick it up and they can then present it in some way.

How Would Google Surface Short Form Video?

Google is planning to surface the short videos by crawling and indexing them like any other piece of material. This is currently being done with self-hosted short videos like Google web stories and it is suggested that this could be done with other types of videos as well. You can open the video on the laptop and will end up on a webpage where you can actually watch it. So, assuming they allow crawling, we should be able to index those films as well. Since short videos/films on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram require an app to view, they may not be indexed by Google.

What does this mean for digital marketing experts?

For many years, Google has indexed video content. In 2015, Google teamed with Twitter to index search results. Is it possible that Facebook or TikTok will be next? As Google scales the product, it might be a useful tool for indexing and surfacing top social network video content. As with Google’s Featured Snippets, digital marketers began to discover how to optimise to get these in a higher position, if they were even shown at all. This would be a continuation of those steps.

But we will need to know how Google chooses these films and where they come from. This would assist clients (both existing and prospective) in obtaining prime SERP real estate. Understanding why and how Google is doing this via search will only benefit the SEO agency’s clients’ growth if applicable. Obviously, this isn’t a solution for everyone. The more digital marketers know about which verticals will do well, the more they will be able to guide their clients.

Conclusion

It is always worth caring about improving our search experience. Google is taking steps to understand what users want (short-form videos). Being able to see this now in our search versus discovery is the forward-thinking we require, especially given Google’s success with how-to videos on YouTube.

So, imagine being able to go straight from your search to fast videos on how to do anything. If brands start to put education and engagement as one of their priorities they may get more lead generation opportunities and greater brand awareness.