VSEO Tips for your YouTube Videos

Posted on September 20, 2013 in Google, Video Marketing, Video Optimization, Video Search Engine Optimization, Video SEO, VSEO

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Videos, the once unsought after method of advertising online, but all that has changed in the past few years with the proliferation of YouTube especially after being bought by Google. YouTube is the second largest search engine, only after its parent company, and has a gigantic reach across the internet thanks to social media sites. A couple quick facts about YouTube:

  • Every minute, 700 videos are shared on Twitter alone
  • The amount of videos watched on Facebook every day equals to 500 years worth

These numbers demonstrate the natural reach that videos have. Your videos have the ability to boost your online presence and customer engagement. So the important thing for you to do is to make sure your videos can be found when searched for online. How to do this? By using VSEO (video search engine optimization). VSEO helps make your videos search engine friendly and can help those videos show up in search results.

1. Research Keywords for VSEO

The basics of search engines is that they can only send their bots to crawl on the content of websites, not the media. What this means is that your video media won’t be indexed by search engines. What you have to do instead is insert those keywords that you want to rank for in places like the video title, the description, and the tags.

Of course, this means you need to figure out what keywords you’ll be using first in those areas. A good place to start is Google’s Keyword Planner tool which has replaced their AdWords Keyword tool. As a boost to your VSEO, this tool can help you find what keywords that will be the best for your videos. Do searches to see what those keywords show in YouTube as well. Make sure to search for single and long-tail keywords. Understanding how many videos share those keywords along with the number of views and related videos, can help you figure out what the competition is for your targeted keywords.

2. Optimize for VSEO

What does that mean exactly? Well it means, taking your video titles, your descriptions, and your tags, and making them all VSEO friendly.

  • Titles – YouTube videos have a 100 character limit for their titles. You need to include your most important keywords at the beginning of your video title. Don’t keyword stuff your titles though or viewers will never click on them. Your titles need to be creative and unique while still telling what the video is about.
  • Descriptions – The description of your video is a very important part of the VSEO process. This is the main content that search engine crawlers “see” when it comes to your video and it is the largest amount of text on the page. YouTube provides you with up to 5,000 characters to use in the description (although, you should never really use all of it) Use this space to optimize for VSEO by using the keywords you used in the title in a creative way. The description should have a summary of the video, sometimes a transcript, and should always have a link back to your website in it.
  • Tags – This is another spot where you can place the keywords that you’re targeting for in the video. Your tags should consist of the keywords that were used in the title and the description as well as any other relevant keywords that could go with the video. Always place your primary keywords first.

3. Video Playlists

Making a playlist of every single video you’ve ever made is not the best idea. Instead, what you want to do is make playlists of your videos that are similar in focus. This can improve their VSEO and your visibility on YouTube. Playlists show up on YouTube search results, and your related videos will show up on those search results as well. Playlists are great for visibility because the other videos in the playlist will show up in the sidebar while a viewer is watching a video. This will boost the views of your videos, instead of YouTube directing viewers to other similar content that hasn’t been created by you.

By creating videos for your online marketing strategy, you are taking the time to increase your online presence and to engage with your customers. By optimizing your videos for VSEO, you are able to boost your video’s views and increase traffic to your own site.