Google's Key Moments Will Shake Up How You Approach Video

As every good marketer knows, video is highly effective. According to Forbes, the average user spends 88% more time on a website with video, and more than 500 million hours of video are watched on YouTube every day. As Google continues to introduce new ways to provide searchers with the most relevant content, the new “key moments” timeline aims to put even more focus on video.

Google’s key moments explained

In an ever-evolving and constantly innovative digital environment, Google launched another new feature meant to better serve its search users by making it faster to find the information they are looking for in a video. This new feature comes in the form of a video timeline known as “key moments.”

According to Google,

“You can find key moments within videos and get to the information you’re looking for faster, with help from content creators. When you search for things like how-to videos that have multiple steps, or long videos like speeches or a documentary, Search will provide links to key moments within the video, based on timestamps provided by content creators.

"You’ll be able to easily scan to see whether a video has what you’re looking for, and find the relevant section of the content. For people who use screen readers, this change also makes video content more accessible.”

Google search results will still showcase the video thumbnail that we are all used to, but in addition to that, a timeline will be visible with “key moments” marked by Google. Below the video will be a carousel with previews and brief descriptions. The viewer can jump to a section of interest within the video simply by pinpointing and selecting that section from the key moments provided.

For the viewer, this allows for easy scanning and navigation of videos. The timeline data is directly pulled from timestamped info provided by the video owner, giving the content creator the ability to highlight the key moments in the video for their audience.

With key moments, Google has embraced the reality that video is the preferred form of content for a majority of internet users. In doing so, a new way to search and consume video content relating to a particular query is changing the way video content reaches an audience.

What key moments means for marketing videos

As a marketer, any time Google announces a change to its algorithm or a new feature, my immediate reaction is to think about how this can benefit (or harm) my clients. In the case of key moments, I couldn’t be more excited.

Let me just preface this with a little fact about myself. I started out in television production, so I tend to geek out a bit when it comes to the merging of my love for video and my love of marketing. I don’t think I have a single client who has not heard me say “I have an idea for a video you could do!”

I see a world of possibilities with key moments. 

Looking at it from the perspective of Google delivering more relevant video content to people, I see an opportunity for businesses and organizations to show prospects and clients that they hear them, understand them, and can provide the answers to their questions. 

Taking a They Ask, You Answer approach to video content will now have the added benefit of Google recognizing that different points in your video will provide the answers that people are searching for. Value is added by giving people the opportunity to jump right to that moment in your video.

From a more technical standpoint, this creates a unique challenge for marketers to be highly strategic and highly purposeful in the content being produced. The marketer that puts the effort into talking to their sales team and doing some research into the questions that prospects and customers are asking will have an advantage when producing video content that clearly answers those questions.

In doing so, that content has an opportunity to be catapulted up in the search results.

Finally, from a business standpoint, there is the potential to attract more qualified leads. Consider how many unqualified leads will be discouraged from visiting your website if they can tell from your content that you offer a product or service that is not what they are searching for. And even better, consider how many leads will be ready to start a conversation with you if they see that you can and have answered their questions. 

Start testing out Google’s key moments

As with anything new, the prospect of key moments is exciting. There are clear SEO benefits and opportunities. From a client and prospect relationship standpoint, this offers a great way to connect and show them that you have the answers they are looking for — with video content!

I’m excited to start testing it out and finding creative ways to put this new feature to good use. I hope you’ll join me in doing so. If you do, please share your results and thoughts with our greater marketing community over at IMPACT Elite!