Interview Questions To Rank B2B and B2C Business Videos Higher on Search Engines, Social Media, and Generative AI

When making an interview video for a B2B business asking the right questions can make the difference between or video ranking organically in search engines, social media, and generative AI.

It’s important to ask questions that serve the purpose and goal of the video, but not asking the right questions can lead the video not being viewed.

As Shades Studios we’ve produced thousands of interview style videos for businesses and we’re going to share that expertise with you here. The following are questions that will serve your video well in making sure it receives organic views for videos intended to drive traffic.

Producing videos that include the relevant keywords and key phrases for your business is vitally important to making sure your video is discoverable, intern increasing the likelihood of it ranking higher. However, another vital factor is making sure the video is helpful and has value to the viewer. As one example, let’s look at what Google has to say on the topic of ranking content.

“Google's automated ranking systems are designed to present helpful, reliable information that's primarily created to benefit people, not to gain search engine rankings, in the top Search results. This page is designed to help creators evaluate if they're producing such content.” (Google Search Central Documentation)

While it is vitally important to include keywords and key phrases, it’s important to make the video provides valuable information that will help the viewer better understand your business. The questions we’ll be providing will both help your video rank by making sure it includes relevant keywords and key phrases while also ensuring the video provides valuable and helpful information to the audience.

Let’s take a look at an interview-style B2B video as an example.

One of the most common types of videos we produce for a B2B business is a company profile video. The company profile typically features C-suite executives, business owners, and key employees that are both integral and knowledgeable about the business.

The following is a company profile we produced for the B2B Aerospace company, Fastener Dimensions Inc, which creates fasteners for the Blackhawk helicopter. Let’s watch the video to get a better understanding of a B2B interview video.

Now we understand what a B2B interview style video looks like. Let’s get right into questions you should ask employees when producing an interview style B2B video that will make the video excel in ranking on multiple platforms.

1. What are the services and/or products your business offers?

You’ll want to list every service and/or product the business offers when the employee answers the question. Keep in mind that many services and products have multiple names or several different key phrases. As one example, an attorney is also called a lawyer. By peppering both names through out the video that attorney (and lawyer) is more likely to rank in a search.

2. What’s the biggest benefit of using your business over the competitors?

Set yourself apart from the competition. Whether you’re providing a service or product it never fails to speak to the quality of your team. This is one of the most common themes we include in our interview style videos since it helps build trust to know that people behind your brand will go above and beyond for their customers.

3. Do you have any stories about seeing a positive effect come from a person switching from a competitor to your business?

This is particularly helpful if your product and service has a lot of competition. If a viewer is currently working with a competitor this may help draw them towards your business if they can identify with the same issues you solved for your customer in the past. Just be sure to omit the name of your competitor, you don’t need to advertise them in your video.

4. Tell us a story about a positive impact you’ve made at your company.  

Hearing employees talk about how they helped the company often comes with a sense of pride and accomplishment. Seeing that employees at a business genuinely care about the work they’re doing makes a viewer that much more likely to work with you.

5. Where is your business located and where does it provide its service or sell its product?

You should think of this question like providing information from a business indexing site like Yelp or a Google Business Listing. This question can be particularly helpful for small businesses that are servicing local markets. Don’t just include the state and town, include your business address.

6. Why should a person care about their decision in selecting the product or service you offer?

You’d be surprised at how often customers don’t know why their decision in choosing a product or service is important. More often than not they’ll choose the least expensive option not realizing what they’re sacrificing. As an example, just because you can hire an SEO “expert” for $10 an hour doesn’t mean you should. What’s the point of hiring this quote-on-quote expert if they’re not able to achieve the goal or if they’re providing an ineffective service. Let the viewer know why their choice in choosing the right product or service provider is important and they’ll be more likely to consider your business when making that decision.  

7. What are the main benefits of using your product or service?

Value propositions are the foundation of solid advertising and marketing. List every important value proposition and don’t be afraid to a shameless exhibitionist about it. People want to hear what’s great about your business, plain and simple. The fact is they want you to succeed in pitching your product or service, they’re looking to solutions to their problems and they want you to succeed. Don’t be bashful when talking about how great your product and service it, lay it on thick.

8. What problems does your product or service solve for your customers?

While every question listed here provides valuable answers and information that will help rank your business higher in searches this is certainly one of the most important to include. Virtually every single question asked to a search engine, AI search engines, or social media used heavily by Gen Z as a form of search, is an attempt to find a solution to a problem. As one example, someone looking to learn how to do Yoga may search “How to do yoga at home?”. A business that teaches Yoga virtually would want to state in their video “We teach people how to do yoga from home.” Including the problem and solution in your video is a surefire way to help the viewer and include relevant keywords and key phrases in the video.

9. As a whole, how do you feel about the services or product that your business offers?

In remembering that your video should be helpful and have relevant keywords and key phrases we must lose sight of this important fact. Videos tell stories, create human connections, and should elicit an emotion from the viewer to be most effective. By asking the interviewee how they feel about the product or service you’re significantly more likely to get an emotional response, and that emotional response will help to create a human connection. Let’s remember that Google has an entire section on Google Search Central with the title “Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content”. People are emotional, even in business, help facilitate that emotional connection to help your video excel.

10. Where do you believe the future of your business is heading

This question helps futureproof your video with information and keywords that are poised to be relevant. It also shows that your business is both future thinking and goal oriented. If the events of COVID-19 and the introduction of AI proved anything, they certainly made it clear that businesses must be future thinking and willing to adapt to survive and thrive.

With these questions available to ask in your interview-style video you’re well on your way to producing a successful video that ranks higher and is highly discoverable by search engines, generative AI, and social media.

It’s important to note that every business is different and targets unique customers, you will certainly want to ask unique questions tailored to your ideal client or customer, but these will questions will give you a solid push in the right direction regardless of what industry your business in. There are also many other factors to consider to when producing interview-style videos such as strategy, directing, lighting, and creative elements just to name a few.

If you’re looking to have a your interview-style business video produced by a professional feel free to contact Shades Studios to produce your video. Otherwise, break a leg as we say in show business! I look forward to seeing your video rank number one across all platforms!