Videos, as we know, are great for marketing. But are they essential for your website marketing? One search engine optimization firm says yes!

He says that in early 2009 Google will be testing videos in their search results, and these results will have an effect on your website rankings. So by 2010 it will be essential to have video on your website if you want to have great rankings and beat out your competitors.

Is this something we need to start planning for? Does a basic acupuncture, chiropractic, or other health care practitioner website need a video on it?

I would not change my whole website because of this, but since Google is able to crawl videos, they may include it in the many factors they use to rank websites like they do with images. And since Google has hundreds of factors they weigh in to rank your site, it may not be necessary to even add a video at this point.

This will also depend on the strength of your competitors. Either way, having a video can’t hurt you and it can help with your marketing strategy.

If you would like to be ahead of this game, add a video to your site. TCM Directory has been ahead of these changes and includes video on all profile pages. Here is an example of an acupuncturist using a video on his profile page on the TCM Directory.

The next few years will be interesting for search engine optimization!