Google’s Short Videos Tab: What You Need to Know as a Small Business

According to Wyzowl’s 2024 video marketing report, 91% of businesses use video marketing. Video has not only become an integral part of a small business’s marketing strategy, but it keeps becoming more important. Now with Google’s short videos tab, your social media videos now have a chance of showing up on Google’s  results page. 

What Is Google’s Short Videos Tab?

Google’s latest search results tab is labeled short videos  because of the content they display in said tab. Google is pulling short video content from Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. The videos pulled will be related to the search query a user has typed in.

For example, when you Google search “The Seasoned Marketer”, videos from our social media pages populate in Google’s short videos tab. 

Why Does It Matter?

It makes sense that our short video content would appear when we search on Google for our own name – but the real magic happens when your small business appears without a direct search query. 

Google’s short video tab gives small business owners another opportunity to appear in front of their target audience on Google. This is why SEO is important not only for your small business’s website, but also for your social media content. 

Here at The Seasoned Marketer, we work to provide marketing resources for small businesses looking to handle their marketing in-house. This means that for us, “small business marketing” is a key phrase that we want to show up for – no matter the location (social media, Google, ChatGPT, etc.). This also means that all the content we create should have keyphrases and SEO focusing on this phrase. 

SEO is just as important on social media platforms as it is on Google. It behooves you to make sure that you are including the keyphrases that are relevant to your small business, who you are trying to connect with, and finding ways to include keywords in your video content.

SEO Tips for Your Social Media Videos 

It’s hard enough to appear on social media platforms, how am I supposed to create content that will show up in Google’s short videos tab? The key is creating relevant content that clearly shows algorithms why it is relevant. This means making sure you are verbally saying the keyphrase in your video, including these keywords in your caption, and answering questions or creating content that your target audience is actually interested in.

Let’s use a different example: you are a boutique that specializes in jean jackets. You know that a common question from potential customers is that they do not know how to style or wear a jean jacket. If you want to appear in front of these potential customers then your video content has to actually be about this query.

The top results in Google’s short videos tab all very clearly answer the question. How do I style a jean jacket?

Our best piece of advice? Know your target audience and they type of search queries they are looking up on Google. When you can create content that clearly answers their questions, you are more likely to appear in the search results, and more likely to bring in a potential customer into your ecosystem!

Pro tip: Not sure what your target audience is searching for in Google? Use Answer The Public! This site allows you to enter in a keyword or phrase and it will then populate the related search results that people are searching for. It also tells you how popular each question is and the average costs for ads relating to those searches. They have a free version and a Pro version. I personally use this whenever I am unsure of the type of content I should be creating. 

Google’s short videos tab is just another opportunity for small businesses to get in front of their target audience. Consider creating content that answers popular search queries in your industry, investing time in SEO for your video content, and creating video content that potential customers will love!