Did you know 93% of businesses get a new customer through their branded videos? The United States of America stands first as the country that spends the most on digital video marketing.
Whether you are creating a zippy bumper or intense 10-minute content, videos have an undeniable impact. The spending on video ads is expected to touch about $80 billion in the U.S. in 2023. Mobile video content is expected to enjoy a major proportion of this spending. According to industry experts, videos will take over search advertising in 2024, on mobile devices.
Videos continue to prove their mettle in keeping customers engaged and persuading them to make a purchase decision. While video marketing makes for a powerful strategy, it is your responsibility as a marketer, to take your videos to customers. After all, your customers will be engaged or be persuaded only when they interact with your videos.
Video SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the strategy to increase the reach of your videos to your customers. Given here are some SEO tips and tricks to optimize your videos for better reach, consistently.
Understanding Video SEO
Video SEO is an organized approach to improving the visibility of your videos on search engines. This approach essentially involves improving the ranking of your video content so that they appear, preferably, on the first page of search engines.
Video production for SEO is a meticulous approach to content creation and optimization of relevant attributes pertaining to your videos. The content typically is value-based, providing information that customers are searching for, online. Video SEO includes specific backend techniques as well that improve the visibility of your video’s front-end.
Videos SEO is invaluable for increasing the reach of your videos through your website, traditional search engines, video search engines and video hosting platforms.
How to Optimize your Videos for SEO?
Organic traffic accounts for 53% of the total traffic to your website. 75% of people are keen on first-page search engine results and never move beyond them. These statistics reinforce the need for optimizing your videos for search engines, and preferably, for the first page.
Position your Video Appropriately
The positioning of your video on a webpage is key to its visibility. For the best results, place your video content on the top of your landing page. This positioning conveys to search engines that the video is the focus content of your page. This high-priority positioning encourages search engines to pick the video up for relevant queries.
Avoid placing multiple videos on a single page. Search engines index only a single video. Do not place a video toward the bottom or in the middle of a webpage. A video should not be a hidden element as well. Videos lose their priority in the minds of search engines when positioned at such locations, leading to poor online visibility.
Choose a Video Hosting Platform that can Deliver on your Objective
If you are using a video hosting platform for publishing your videos, then choose a service provider that can best realize your objective. For example, if increasing brand awareness is your objective, then platforms such as YouTube are great. But realize that hosting videos on these platforms does not necessarily result in website traffic or conversions for your business.
If you have specific goals such as driving website traffic or boosting conversions, then explore
platforms that support such engagement.
Regardless of the platform, ensure that your videos are high-quality and offer educative or entertainment value to viewers. Professional video production is key to creating videos that deliver results.
Include Video Metadata
Video metadata describes your videos to search engines, making them more “readable” and understandable. With metadata, search engines can efficiently categorize your videos and fetch them up for relevant keyword queries.
Video metadata typically consists of:
Video Title – Use a title that best describes your video. Include a relevant keyword to increase favorability with search engines.
Video Description – Tell search engines and searchers about the content of your video. Keep your description brief and include keywords naturally, at the beginning of the description, for more search engine pull.
Video Meta Tags – These elements improve video understandability and enable better content categorization by search engines. Include 3-4 tags and keep each tag short and relevant to the video.
Deepen Optimization with a Video Sitemap
Extending the benefits of video metadata, a video sitemap helps you add more information about your video. You can specify the running time of the video, include a thumbnail image URL, and video upload date.
Search engines rely on extending the best user experience to people searching for information. The attributes of a video sitemap enable search engines to offer more information and better search experiences to viewers.
For example, video duration helps search engines take your videos to users interested in specific running time. User experience is great when viewers get videos that address their needs.
Embedding a thumbnail URL ensures that search engines fetch the exact thumbnail image you want to be displayed. As thumbnail images serve as a compelling prompt for click-throughs, it is crucial that your thumbnail displays high-quality images. With accurate URL specification, you can increase video click-through rate.
Add a Video Transcript
A video transcript provides search engines and viewers more information. A transcript is also an opportunity to include more keywords. Transcripts are key to improving the indexability of your videos. Search engines can “see” your videos by reading the transcript, which enables them to index them more efficiently. The better the indexing, the greater the reach.
To further deepen optimization, position the transcript immediately below the video. This technique mobilizes keywords for better SEO performance. In addition, this practice improves user experience.
For example, a viewer that is unable to listen to your video due to a noisy environment can still watch the video. He/ she can understand the content from the transcript.
Prioritize Video Thumbnail Images
Thumbnail images of your videos are crucial as they enable viewers to assess if your content is click-worthy. A thumbnail image must be of high-quality and clear in intent. A thumbnail must not show an image irrelevant to the video content.
Optimize Other Elements of the Page
In addition to the video, the page that is hosting the video must be SEO-optimized. Without page optimization, the chances of your video gaining visibility on search engines are low.
Care should be taken to ensure that the page is relevant to the video. If the video is highly specific and the page is generic, then ranking will take a hit.
Include relevant content and update content consistently, to optimize your page as well as the video. Be consistent in updating content with engaging information. Ensure that other on-page SEO needs are addressed, to improve video ranking.
Designate an Exclusive Page for your Focus Video
Give your focus video – the video for which you want better search engine visibility – an exclusive webpage. You can give it a complete landing page, the purpose of which is to host the video.
You can also include the video on a web page with text or other content, such as a blog post. But the video has to be a focus point on such pages. The page must be able to deliver more value to viewers due to the video, for maximum video optimization.
In Conclusion
SEO must be integral to your video production process for maximum impact. Develop value-rich videos and employ the above best practices to surpass your video marketing goals.
