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Why Video Should Be at the Heart of Your Search Everywhere Strategy

Discover why video is essential for AI SEO success. Learn how video transcripts power LLMs, accelerate AI Overview rankings, and dominate video carousels for faster visibility.

By
Harvey Sparrow
mins read

Why Video Should Be at the Heart of Your Search Everywhere Strategy

Search is changing fast. With AI Overviews, multimodal search, and large language models now shaping how users find information, the traditional SEO playbook isn't enough. Ranking well in Google's blue links is only part of the visibility puzzle.

SEO has evolved to Search Everywhere Optimisation, which includes the next wave of AI models and platforms like ChatGPT. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is about getting your brand discovered, cited, and recommended by AI.

When planning your AI SEO strategy, consider what you already have and how to maximize it. One format emerging as powerful for visibility is video.

Video is Now a Top LLM SEO Source

Most high-performing large language models ingest video transcripts from platforms like YouTube and Vimeo as part of their training data. Every time you publish a clear, topic-rich, and captioned video, you're feeding the knowledge base that AI systems use to answer queries.

For B2B marketers, this presents significant opportunity through explainer videos, product walkthroughs, webinars, and thought leadership clips. These are no longer just marketing assets but indexable, discoverable, and quotable data sources for AI systems. Your next how-to video could be cited by an AI assistant when someone searches for products like yours.

Video Accelerates Appearance in AI Overviews

Ranking organically for high-intent keywords can take months or years. However, video gives you a faster path to surface in AI interfaces. When Google's AI Overviews analyze search topics, they often prioritize fresh, multimedia content. If your video clearly answers a question or explains a concept tied to valuable keywords, it can be cited in these AI summaries much faster than organic page rankings.

A SaaS company publishing a 90-second explainer on intent data could see that video appear in video carousels and referenced in AI-generated search responses within days, even before traditional organic ranking.

Video Carousels Rank in Top 5 Positions

Video carousels have become reliable ways to appear above the fold, often ranking in the top five organic positions for high-intent queries. By strategically publishing and optimizing video content, you occupy dual visibility zones in video carousels and AI Overviews.

Since YouTube is owned by Google, videos there enjoy faster crawling and integration into organic results and AI-generated overviews. Optimize videos like web pages by including target keywords in titles, transcripts, and descriptions, adding clear timestamps, and using schema markup when embedding on your site.

If competitors have blog posts without videos, this is your competitive advantage.

AI SEO is About Visibility Everywhere

Generative search changes where and how people find information. It's not just about top 10 links anymore but which brands are referenced and summarized in AI-generated answers. Search Everywhere means visibility across all platforms with search boxes, and video accelerates your presence.

Video combines what search engines and AI systems value most: structured, context-rich data through transcripts, visual storytelling, and trust signals from visible human voices.

How to Integrate Video Into Your AI SEO Strategy

Map your priority topics. Identify your most valuable keywords and questions representing video-ready opportunities.

Create short, focused clips. Think 60-120 seconds per topic, explaining or answering one key question clearly.

Transcribe and optimize. Upload transcripts, captions, and structured descriptions including target terms naturally.

Distribute across multiple surfaces. Host on YouTube, embed on your blog, and share snippets on LinkedIn and social channels.

Monitor visibility in AI Overviews and carousels. Track when your content appears in AI results.

Measure engagement and conversions. Track watch time and assisted conversions showing how video impacts discovery and demand.

The Key Takeaway

For small business owners, video makes your business feel real and trustworthy while helping content surface in Google and AI tools faster. You don't need fancy production, just decent lighting and your phone.

For B2B marketers, video sits at the intersection of SEO, demand generation, and brand visibility. It earns space in both traditional search and AI environments. In competitive markets, investing in formats that turn brand visibility into revenue pays dividends.

Video isn't just a storytelling tool anymore—it's a search visibility engine. In an era where AI LLMs rewrite content discovery, brands showing up in multiple formats including text and video stay top-of-mind. Next time you plan your SEO roadmap, ask: "Where could video help us be found faster?" Because in the AI SEO era, the fastest path to search visibility might be your next video, not another blog post.

About the author

Harvey Sparrow
Customer Success Account Manager

I'm the Customer Success Account Manager at Hike. With a background in Sociology and Media from Loughborough University, I developed a strong understanding of how digital platforms shape modern communication. At Hike, I support our customers by ensuring they get the most value from their SEO strategy—guiding them through our AI expert, Kit, and helping them understand the results and opportunities it delivers.

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