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Getting Started With Video SEO

By
GetCraft
 •
May 22, 2020

If your business has a website, then you’ve heard of search engine optimization or SEO. The concept is simple: you optimize the content of your website in order to increase traffic from organic search engine results.

Video SEO is essentially the same thing. It is the process of optimizing your video so it shows up on search engine results pages. If a video is properly optimized, the video can appear on the first page of the search results when someone searches for relevant keywords. The concept applies to queries made in Google and video platforms like YouTube.

As consumer video consumption continues to grow, Google and other search engines are expected to increase the ranking factor of pages with video content. Here are some tips to consider when optimizing your video for search.

Do a video keyword research

Just like how you’d do keyword research for written website content, you need to conduct a keyword research before posting your videos to maximize SEO.

There are several ways to go about video keyword research, but the simplest one is to simply check if your chosen keywords show up on Google and YouTube Suggest.

Looking at these results will let you know if there is any interest in your video content ideas. As an additional tip, be sure to go incognito or private on your web browser before doing this, as your suggested searches might be affected by your previous search or browsing history.

If you want to perform more in-depth keyword research, you may want to consider using tools such as VidIQ Keyword Search or YouTube Analytics (if you already have existing YouTube video content).

Optimize for your website

Just having video on your website can help you improve your website’s SEO because Google likes pages with rich content. If a website has a mix of text, photos, and videos, this tells Google that the page has a good mix of media that may be relevant to a search query.

At the same time,your website pages should also be optimized for SEO so both your video and page have good chances of ranking high on search results pages. Here are a few ways to optimize your website for video:

  • Embed the video and make it the focus on the page. Ideally, place it above the fold (that is, you see it before even scrolling down).
  • Don’t embed it on multiple pages on your website. Doing so will make your own website compete against itself on search engine results.
  • Make the landing page relevant to the video. The body text, photos, meta descriptions, alt tags, and other page elements should be relevant to the video content. If all these elements are generic, then they won’t help the video rank well on search engines.

Optimize for YouTube

YouTube is by far the most important platform for you to optimize your video content. It is, after all, the most viewed video-based platform. Moreover, Google search engine results list YouTube videos as well.

Once you have your target keywords, incorporate them into the following:

  • Video title. The video title is likely the most important aspect of video SEO. To optimize the video title, simply include your target keywords in your title while also ensuring that it can get you clicks and views.
  • Video description. Write at least 200-word descriptions that include your keywords and talks about your video. This helps the YouTube search engine better understand your video and know when it should be listed in user recommendations.
  • Tags. Use your target keywords in one of your tags then add at least five more to assist YouTube on when to list or how to categorize your video in search results.

Aside from these, it is also beneficial to say your target keywords in-video. YouTube understands much of what is said in the actual video, and if you’re uploading a transcript, then having the keywords mentioned will most definitely factor in optimization.

Add a transcript

Adding a transcript helps YouTube completely understand what is being talked about in your video, and it also helps make your video more accessible. Many creators also say that transcripts help their videos show up more in suggested videos.

Use an engaging thumbnail

Showing up on search results is important, but what good does it do when your video isn’t clicked on? This is where the importance of an engaging video thumbnail comes in. The video thumbnail is one of the most important aspects (next to the title) of the search result snippet. It needs to be relevant and compelling as it can have a huge impact on your video click-through rates.

Create quality videos

No matter how good your video SEO is, if it does not add any value to the viewer’s life, then it will not get shares or linkbacks. Your videos should aim to make the audience entertained, more educated, or feel strong enough emotions (happiness, anger, shock, etc.) that they will want to share it on social media or by writie about it and embed it on their own websites. The best part? These shares and linkbacks will ultimately help your SEO efforts.

The popularity of videos is an excellent opportunity for brands to get creative and drive their business goals. Implement these video SEO tips as you produce your video content to ensure that they are seen and heard by your target audience.

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