Video is a popular tool on the web and shows up everywhere; business sites, news sites, corporate pages, personal sites, video hosting sites, blog sites, mobile devices, social networks, etc. There are over 52 million visitors to YouTube a day and it is ranked the 3rd most viewed site in the U.S. There are more than 30 other video hosting sites that generate a high amount of traffic as well. Video is an integral part to any modern marketing strategy and with video comes Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO).
The goal behind VSEO is to optimize your videos to get them higher ranked on search engines such as Google and Bing. How do you do this? By syndicating the video and sending it to multiple video sharing websites and sharing it with your customer base via social networks.
Online video presentations such as webinars should be placed on public sites and intranet portals. Enable viral video sharing and update the videos on video portal websites such as YouTube. Encourage customer responses by having an open comments section and rating system in place. These are just some basic tips for you to get started in distributing your videos for access across the web. Following are some tips to strengthen your VSEO:
- Target your audience: with informative videos which are different and relevant.
- Consider what your audience first sees: What is the video thumbnail that is shown when your users go to look for your video? This will be the first thing they see and it may determine if they watch it or not. Some sites use the first frame from the video while some video sites like YouTube use a frame from the middle of the video.
- Length of Video: You’ll want to make sure your videos are shorter than five minutes in length. Users generally watch videos that are three minutes or less. If your video has to be longer than that, break it up into smaller videos and make sure to tag them all.
- Provide Text-Based Content: For your video to rank well, the search engines will be looking at the text around your video as well as at your video. Surround your video with text-based content that is relevant to the video and with related links as well to increase VSEO.
- The Title is Important: The search engines will use the title to identify your video so use a keyword or phrase that best describes your product or service in your title. Make it a unique title as well to grab your target audience and convey your company.
- The word “video”: When looking for videos online, many users include the word “video” in their searches. Because of this, make sure to include the word “video” to your title, description, Meta data, etc.
- Optimize the video: Use the important keywords and phrases that your users search for to identify your video. Include them in the video tags to make it more likely to show up in searches.
- Enable sharing and embedding: Include the option to allow users to embed your video into their own blogs and websites. This will help your video go viral, as it is easily sharable and will create back links for you.
- Encourage Audience Participation: Videos with higher ratings get the attention of search engines so encourage your users to rate and review your videos.
With these tips in mind, your VSEO campaign should be successful and your videos will rank higher on search engines, generating more traffic and increasing your customer base.
SearchPro Systems
2024