Video or words: which is better for website & blog SEO?
While video is a brilliant tool for engagement, Google’s search bots primarily crawl written text to understand and rank your content. If you want your blog to actually show up in search results, you must extract the value from your videos and get those specific words onto the page in a helpful, structured format. In short: no writing, no ranking.
Rachael (l) and Simon (r) on location for a photo shoot
Beyond the lens: making video work for your website SEO
The shift towards video is impossible to ignore. Whether you are a garden designer showcasing a summer bloom or an interior architect walking through a finished build, the pull of video content (YouTube, Reels, TikTok) is strong. It’s tempting to think that by simply embedding these clips into your blog, you’ve sorted your SEO and content marketing. However, while a video might capture the ambience of hotel or a florist's bouquet, Google’s search bots aren’t actually watching the footage; they are scanning for context, structure, and depth—elements that only reside in the written word.
Relying solely on video leaves your website's SEO underpowered. A video on its own amounts to what’s called ‘thin content’, which tells search engines your page lacks substance. To make your website work harder, you have to bridge the gap between what a visitor sees and what a search engine reads. It’s relatively straightforward - take the video content and translate it into a format that makes sense for SEO. We’ll look at how you can turn all your best short form video from social media into web content that will drive real traffic to your site.
Ten top SEO takeaways for turning Reels into rankings on your website
No writing, no ranking. Google doesn’t watch your videos; it reads your words. Without text, your page is effectively invisible to search engines
Avoid thin content. Embedding a video with a two-sentence caption tells Google your page has no substance, which can actively hurt your search standing
The YouTube paradox. While YouTube can transcribe and index video internally, Google Search requires on-page text to understand your blog's value
Repurposing is efficiency. Don't let your best advice die on Instagram after 24 hours. Pull that knowledge onto your blog to give it a permanent home
Transcription is just the start. Spoken word rarely reads well on a screen. Always edit your raw transcript to ensure it flows naturally for a reader
Focus on Search Essentials. Use the exact terminology your clients use. If you're a landscape architect, use everyday terms people type in searches rather than opaque industry jargon
Video is a secondary boost. Treat video as a way to increase dwell time—keeping people on the page longer—rather than the primary source of SEO
Crawlable links matter. Ensure your internal links are clear and functional so Google can map out the rest of your portfolio or service pages
The feedback loop. Use Google Search Console to see which blog topics are actually landing. Unlike social media, you can tweak a blog post months later to improve its performance
Safety first with tools. When using third-party apps to download or transcribe, never hand over your Instagram login credentials
1. Video or words: which type of content is better for boosting the SEO of my website & blog?
Content creation is all about video these days, particularly with TikTok’s highly tuned video suggestion algorithm and Instagram’s Reels (short form video). Many business owners are tempted to apply this paradigm shift to blogging, such as adding or embedding videos in a blog post with little or no other content.
While I highly recommend repurposing marketing content between your website blog and social media, you will do your website SEO no favours by adding video content to your blog, but ignoring written content.
It’s helpful to remind ourselves what Google says about SEO to ensure your website content is eligible to appear and perform well on Google Search. Google very open about this in its Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide (written for non-experts).
In overview, Google is constantly exploring the web, looking for pages to add to its index – this is called crawling. While there's no guarantee that any particular website or blog page will be added to Google's index, if you follow a few fundamentals, your website is more likely to show up in Google's search results.
The two main Search Essentials, as Google calls them, are:
Create helpful, reliable, people-first content
Use words that people would use to look for your content
If you think you can solely rely on video, think again – you need to get the specific words from your video down on the page one way or another in written form.
Google does mention video content in its video SEO best practices. However, it’s quite specific: unless the webpage’s main purpose is to show users a single video, the video is complementary to the rest of the content on the page. In other words, blogging is about the words first, but you can use video to reinforce the points you make.
To recap, video is moving visual content, whereas a blog is written content – Google is primarily interested in the written content when it comes to indexing and SEO. As such, we can’t rely on a video to boost our SEO (unless you’re creating a dedicated watch page for each video, which is beyond the scope of this blog).
Focus on the words on your blog pages first and foremost, but use video to act as an enhancement.
Key ideas:
Google prioritises written content because its crawlers are looking for specific words to index
Short-form video like Reels or TikTok is great for social engagement but won't help your website rank without accompanying text
A blog should lead with words, using video only to reinforce or illustrate the points being made
2. What are the SEO best practices for incorporating video in blogs on my website?
As we’ve seen so far, embedding a video or uploading one onto your blog isn’t going to magically improve your SEO. This is because there are no words on page for Google to crawl and then use to index your webpage.
This type of content is what’s known as ‘thin content’, which is to say pages with little to no added value or anything of substance for visitors.
As we like to say: ‘no writing, no ranking’.
When it comes to content marketing, it’s important to tailor your content to the particular platform. As such, if you upload videos on YouTube, YouTube has the means to analyse the content, create captions, generate a transcript and generally pinpoint the keywords so it can work out how it surfaces your content to other people on YouTube (although there’s no guarantee).
If your marketing plan is focused on using YouTube to build an audience, video is a great way to get that visibility.
The same is not true for transferring that video content directly to your blog and hoping for the same results. (The one exception is a video watch page, but we’re not going to cover that in this blog.)
What we need to do when it comes to blogging and using video content is extract the value, benefits and impact of the content and get it into written format on page.
You don’t need to dispense with the video, but you need to focus primarily on the words.
Here are some suggestions:
Get a transcription of the video and turn it into a blog (this is my recommended approach for best results, but the transcript will need some editing)
Embed the video in your blog, but summarise the key points of the video in the blog so that you can still feed into your SEO
Take screenshots and create a step by step ‘how to’ guide in your blog that backs up what’s in the video
Overall, if you want to use video in your blogs, you've got to extract the words and value from it and turn them into words on page.
Key ideas:
Thin content—pages with very little text—is a red flag for search engines and should be avoided
Turn video insights into value-add text through summaries, step-by-step guides or full transcriptions
Using screenshots from your video to create a visual tutorial is a clever way to add depth to a post
At Wildings Studio, we help design-conscious brands—from interior designers and garden architects to boutique hospitality venues—make their websites work significantly harder. If you’re looking to sharpen your digital strategy, you can explore more of our advice on SEO and Content Marketing.
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3. How can I download an Instagram video and turn it into text for a blog post?
Repurposing video from Instagram (e.g., Reels or Stories) is quite easy and makes it much quicker for creating blog content that you can then improve and develop indefinitely.
Note that last part: a social media post has a limited lifespan, so if it tanks immediately, it’s almost impossible to revive it. Whereas a blog can be published and then updated and tweaked constantly, plus you can see your results in Google Search Console, creating a highly effective feedback loop.
This is my step by step approach to downloading video content from Instagram, turning video into text and then repurposing it on your blog for better SEO.
This approach is designed to be used on a computer or a laptop, although I talk though some scenarios where you would need to first get videos from your phone.
1. Download your Instagram Reel or Story
On your computer or laptop, use a free online app to download your Instagram Reel or Story onto your system, such as:
WARNING: Avoid any app that requires you to sign into your Instagram account
This will only work for Stories if they are still live, otherwise download the Story to your phone via the archive area in your Instagram account settings
Once the video is in the files on your phone, share it to your computer via AirDrop or another means
2. Use a free online app to generate a transcription
Upload the video from your computer to an online transcribing app
These are free, quick, don’t require need an account and are remarkably accurate, such as:
You can also use the online browser version of Microsoft Word to transcribe an audio file (using the Dictate > Transcribe option), but it tends to be slower than the online apps, plus you need a subscription
WARNING: avoid any website with security issues!
Download the text file to your system from the app following the instructions on screen
3. Write up the transcript into a full blog article
Once you’ve got the raw text, you can then create the outline for the blog and flesh it out - check out a previous Content Corner on this topic: How to structure a blog post for better SEO & engagement
Depending on the video you may need to do more or less of this editing and copywriting
Note that we communicate differently via video, so you will generally need to edit and rewrite a transcription so that it makes sense as written content
Pay attention to the Search Essentials from Google when writing your blog:
Create helpful, reliable, people-first content
Use words that people would use to look for your content
Place these keywords in prominent locations on the page (title, main heading, alt text and link text)
Make your links crawlable
Tell people about your site
Follow specific best practices if you have other content (e.g., images or videos)
Lastly, I would suggest embedding the video if it’s an Instagram Reel; alternatively, upload the video to YouTube and then embed it with the content you’ve written as the blog.
Key ideas:
Use browser-based tools to download Reels or Stories to your computer rather than trying to manage the process on a mobile
Free AI transcription services can quickly turn audio into a text file, saving you timing typing manually
The final step should always be human: refine your raw text into a structured, helpful article that follows SEO best practices
Frequently Asked Questions
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Not on its own. While video improves user engagement, Google’s index is primarily text-based. For an interior designer or architect to see an SEO benefit, the video must be supported by descriptive, keyword-rich headings and body copy that explain the project or advice shown in the film.
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The most effective way is to download the video and use a transcription tool to extract the dialogue. Once you have the text, rewrite it into a structured article. This allows you to capture search traffic for specific terms—like "boutique hotel interior trends"—that a video file alone cannot rank for.
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Thin content refers to webpages that offer little value to the user, often containing only a video or a few images without context. For design-conscious brands, this often happens when a portfolio piece is published with no description. Google may penalise these pages, making it harder for potential clients to find your studio online.
Deepen your knowledge: more SEO & design insights:
About the author:
Simon Cox is the co-founding director (along with his wife, Rachael Cox) at Wildings Studio, a branding, website design and content marketing studio in Torquay, UK. He’s the writer and editor of the Wildings Studio blog which you’re currently reading. Simon is also responsible for the Wildings Studio content marketing services. Simon blogs regularly on topics to do with the core Wildings Studio services on branding, website design and content marketing (blogging). He’s passionate about helping small business develop great content that answers the questions people type in Google in order to get found online (SEO).
In this article:
Beyond the lens: making video work for your website SEO
Ten top SEO takeaways for turning Reels into rankings on your website
About Wildings Studio
Thoughtful, beautiful branding and websites for design-led businesses
Wildings is a website designer for small businesses offering website design. Based in South Devon, UK, we deliver small business website design for design-conscious brands like garden designers, interior designers, architects, circular ethos restaurants, speciality coffee shops, organic cafés and boutique hotels.
