There’s no doubt that video is taking on a considerable role in optimization, but how can you ensure that your videos will show up in a search? Well, SEO is all about putting science and data to work for you, and video SEO is no different.
You have probably spent a bit of time and effort on production, editing, and of course, recording your video. So, make sure it gets seen by learning all about video SEO from the pros at Focus DMG.
Video SEO – What Is It and Why Is It Different?
Okay, video SEO is the action of optimizing your video. It will ensure that search engines index your video and rank it appropriately in a search engine results page or SERP. It is far different than standard SEO, and the strategies employed for video SEO are new to almost everyone.
Video SEO relies on you, making sure that your video:
- Is on the right platform
- Has a transcript
- Has an engaging thumbnail image
- Detailed and clear title and description
- Is embedded onto a page
- The focus of a page
These core pieces of video SEO work together quite well, and after you pick up the basics, you’ll see that it’s not difficult to implement good video SEO regularly.
Finding the Right Platform
Vloggers have the benefit of knowing that video is the core essence of their business. For everyone else, you need to define the purpose of your videos. Are you making videos to gain leads or foster site traffic? Maybe your video is only meant to build brand awareness or to interact with customers.
The right platform will make all the difference. The two most common platforms are YouTube and Vimeo. However, you can also explore Instagram videos and other platforms as well.
The reason that it’s important to have your video on a platform and not just on your site is that platforms can help your video get indexed. Traffic is likely going to the platform’s site regularly, and you need to capitalize on that traffic.
Creating a Transcript
A video transcript is becoming a must. Not everyone wants to listen to a video. Others want to read along, or not watch at all but read the content. Video transcripts make your videos more accessible and easier to crawl by search bots.
The video transcript acts as a form of page copy. It can help bots index the video and rank higher for searches.
After putting in all of the work to produce a quality video, it needs to get results. Focus DMG can help! Call us today.
Creating a Custom Thumbnail Image
The standard for many videos is to display the first image or an image from the video as a display. The downside is that you get something that looks grainy, outdated, or just wonky because there’s no effort in editing to make that particular frame look amazing.
Instead, use a strong thumbnail image and take on that task with the idea that it’s the cover of a book. It needs to grab the attention of anyone scrolling by and get the entire point of the video across with a single image.
Custom thumbnails increase play rate by about 30%, and this is one of the most significant aspects of video SEO.
Writing Your Title and Description
Your title and description are the bits of copy that the platform will use to index your video. Unlike with long-form content, it’s impossible to elaborate on your point or use too many keyword variants. You mostly only have a few sentences to get your point across.
Instead of stuffing as many keywords as is possible into your title and description focus on creating something interesting. Not that clickbait is the goal here, but if you notice clickbait hardly ever has a keyword in the title and those videos garner tons of attention.
Embedding the Video
Just posting on YouTube or Vimeo is not enough. You need to guide the spiders or bots that index pages and videos towards your video content over and over again. The best way to do that is to embed your video onto a page.
Bloggers that use video as part of their content mix will create a new post for each video. Not only will this post showcase their video, but it will provide a substantial amount of text to accompany it.
Embedding the video is fairly easy with Wix, WordPress, or similar tools. However, you do need to be sure that you’re not just loading a video up without putting any thought into the page.
Be sure that the page is relevant to the video. One reason why it’s a great idea to pair a video with a relevant blog post. You also need to ensure that your webpage is high-quality and loads quickly.
