In today’s digital age, it is crucial to invest in SEO for VFX studios and Post Production Houses / Companies. SEO helps for maximizing business revenue.

VFX artists and prospective clients are always looking for best Visual Effects Companies to get a job or to outsource freelance Animation and VFX projects. SEO can be real game changer here to attract them. 

SEO for VFX Studios and Post Production Houses

Talking about SEO for VFX studios, well, it’s totally different ball game here.

Let’s go back 4 to 5 years. VFX and Post Production Studio owners used to think that to generate more business and leads, real life contacts are very much beneficial (it is still true) than online presence. The most common practice of marketing manager or owner of Post Production Company / Facility was to showcase the studio demo reel / show reel to prospective clients. Their preferred way is email communication, followed by extensive follow up. 

Following the above pattern, VFX studios and post production houses were not using SEO services on optimum level. On the name of SEO, they had typical official web site with very limited contents. At the most, some studios were updating their social media company pages. Some were using LinkedIn, which is still one of the best digital platforms to find and approach new clients.

But, now the scenario is changed to find prospective clients for receiving outsource VFX projects through proper SEO.

Research has suggested that one of the best practices is to use Media and Animation as a way of boosting a site’s SEO. Essentially, an animated explainer video created by a professional VFX artist could help your SEO efforts in the long run. For a start, if you have an animated video on your site, then chances are it will boost the average website visit time, and facts like this matter a lot to Google.

Although it is all but impossible to know all about search engine algorithms and what exactly it is that search engines like Google are looking for, the time that people spend on a website definitely plays a vital role, as usually, it will mean that the website is interesting. On average a website visit time is only 8 seconds, yet with the addition of a video, a site visit time increases on average by a whole 2 minutes. That’s a boost of an incredible 1500%!

Video and Animation are also the most shared marketing content on social media.  This, in turn, can lead to more visitors to your site. This will boost SEO because the more views on a website means for a better ranking on search engines.

MUST READ >> SEO for Animation Institutes: Vital Tool to Rank Ahead in List of Best Animation Schools / Institutes

Another reason why Media and Animation can help with SEO is the fact that a site should not miss out on the chance to rank highly in the world second largest search engine – YouTube. It is bigger than other search engines such as Yahoo! Or Bing and the only way a business can get there is to include videos on their site.

Therefore adding an immersive explainer video to your site of Post Production Studio can have multiple benefits. Not only can it increase a site’s visit time, but it will also give your site a chance to rank highly on another hugely popular search engine.

As per the latest survey, on Facebook alone, a video is shared 12 times more than text or pictures.

Benefits of SEO for VFX studios and Post Production Houses

Now, it is the ideal time for every Animation and Post Production Studio to invest in SEO practices to capitalize the demanding situation of outsourcing VFX. It can open a whole new revenue stream if your studio is getting higher rank in organic Google searches for specific keywords. It is all about smart digital marketing and branding. It is quite possible that your competition will get first hand outsource VFX projects, even if your credentials are better. 

If you fail to do so, you will have to be happy with old clients or receiving projects through intermediate clients who takes commission for every project.

Benefits of SEO for VFX Studios are multifold. The core approach is to leverage the power of Digital Media for continuous growth and success of Post Production House / Company. Following are some of the advantages.

• To get direct VFX Outsourcing projects
• To become influencing brand in the Animation and VFX industry
• Adapting holistic approach for clients: get, engage, retain, grow, repeat
• Lead generation of prospective clients
• Increasing digital footprints and interactions on official website and social media platforms
• Creating strong backbone for business development
• In long run, it establishes brand as market leader
• It attracts fresher and professional VFX artists who are looking for job change
• Tapping international market to grow business
• It provides accurate data for constant competition analysis
• Rank for specific keyword which is core strength of your studio

SEO strategies for VFX studios and Post Production Houses

There are many ways in which a website can work its way up the SEO ladder to reach the desired position in search engines rankings. However, the methods that businesses use to go about this differ, depending on the type of site that is trying to improve their SEO. No two websites are the same, so why would the SEO strategies used be the same? Media and Entertainment are unique industries, so often their marketing strategies are unique also.

To push the ranking of a website, various factors must be looked into such as web design, content development, and key work usage. Social media will also play a big role in SEO when it comes to the Media and Entertainment industry as a buzz can be created on a social networking site, bringing a good sense of visibility.

Following are some of the tried and test SEO techniques that can be used of SEO for VFX studios and Post Production houses:

• Create posts / articles which includes specific list of keywords that the studio wants to rank for
• Updating website / blog after each project completions (movie, commercial, series, documentary, corporate video and any other assignment)
• Publish before and after images with relevant keywords and Alt attributes 
• Website must be fast loading, responsive and coding errors free
• Publish behind the scenes text interview or video 
• Target group (TG) should be prospective clients and artists
• Create proper video of Visual Effects breakdown /making of 
• Apart from official site, do continuous update on all social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, Pinterest and others)
• Publishing interview of leading Visual Effects artists
• Continuously check what peer competition is doing and change existing SEO optimization strategies, if required
• Participate aggressively in various Animation and VFX related events / seminars and do huge digital marketing of the same
• Showcase current industry news, hardware and software updates to increase digital footprints and user
• Online engagement should be carried out by answering online queries of users
• Participating in various Animation and VFX jobs forums with backlink to studio website

Proper SEO strategies generates new and profitable clients with benefits.

New techniques are getting implemented every now and then. SEO for Animation and VFX studios is a continuous process. It is not overnight success, but diligent work in the same arena yields remarkable growth to receive VFX outsourcing projects from Hollywood and other international market. 

My blog ‘The Virtual Assist‘ is leading digital brand in the niche market of Animation and Visual Effects (VFX). It is featured in ‘Top 50 VFX Blogs & Websites for Visual Effects artists and Filmmakers’ by Feedspot. My blog is ranked on:

• 19^th position at International level
• 1^st position at India

Check out the official link: http://blog.feedspot.com/vfx_blogs/

I had achieved it all through my consistent white hat SEO practices and knowledgeable content creation. 70% to 80% traffic comes from Google Search. TVA is registered brand with Google compliant policies for trusted site. For more details, kindly check out Advertising section. 

If you want to grow business of your VFX studio, kindly communicate on info@thevirtualassist.net.