Over the past few years, video content has emerged as a powerful tool for growing and engaging audiences. However, creating great video content alone is not enough.
Without a solid search engine optimization (SEO) strategy behind your videos, you could be missing out on one of the most valuable channels of traffic to your content: organic visitors from search engines.
Practice SEO Basics for SEO Content
Learn how to apply these SEO best practices for video content to improve their organic visibility, increase search engine rankings and attract a larger audience.
Let’s start with some basic SEO best practices that should be applied to all your content, but especially video.
Conduct Keyword Research
Just like with any other type of content, keyword research plays a vital role in video SEO. Identify relevant keywords and key phrases that align with your video’s content and target audience.
Utilize keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Moz to discover popular search terms related to your topic. Be sure to incorporate these keywords naturally into your video title, description, tags, and video transcript, while avoiding “keyword stuffing”.
Remember, viewer first, keywords second.
Engaging and Informative Video Titles
A compelling video title not only captures the attention of viewers but also helps search engines understand the video’s content. Create descriptive, keyword-focused titles that accurately represent what the video offers. Keep them concise and catchy, while ensuring they provide a clear idea of what viewers can expect from your video. Remember, viewer first, keywords second.
Optimize Video Descriptions
Video descriptions are an excellent opportunity to provide more context to both viewers and search engines. Include a concise summary of your video’s content, relevant keywords, and links to your website or other related content. Be sure to write unique descriptions for each video, avoiding duplicate content. Add timestamps in the description to help viewers navigate through longer videos.
More Advanced Video SEO Strategies
Once you’ve applied the basic SEO tactics to your video content, it’s time to make sure they’re fully optimized to take advantage of that qualified traffic coming from organic sources.
Utilize Video Transcripts
Transcribing your videos not only enhances accessibility but also improves search engine optimization. Transcripts provide text-based content that search engines can crawl, index, and understand. Be sure to include your target keywords naturally within the transcript, as this helps search engines match your video with relevant search queries.
Optimize Video Thumbnails
Thumbnails are often the first visual impression viewers have of your video. Create visually appealing and relevant custom thumbnails that accurately represent your video’s content. Use high-quality images, vibrant colors, and readable text to boost the click-through rate (CTR) for your videos.
Use high-quality images, vibrant colors, and readable text to boost the click-through rate (CTR) for your videos.
Incorporate Video Schema Markup
Schema markup is a powerful tool that helps search engines understand the content of your videos. By adding video schema markup to your HTML, you can provide additional information such as video duration, upload date, and thumbnail URL. Defining your video as a Clip, VideoObject or BroadcastEvent using schema markup helps to enhance the visibility and presentation of your videos in search engine results.
Host Videos on Your Website
While popular video platforms like YouTube and Vimeo are excellent for reach and visibility, consider hosting videos on your own website as well. This allows you to retain traffic, engagement, and SEO benefits directly on your site. Ensure your video pages are optimized for fast loading speeds, responsive design, and provide a positive user experience.
Promote Video Sharing and Embedding
Encourage viewers to share and embed your videos on their websites and social media platforms. This generates backlinks to your video, signaling to search engines that your content is valuable and relevant. Make it easy for viewers to share your videos by including social sharing buttons and embedding options directly on your video pages.
Encourage viewers to share and embed your videos on their websites and social media platforms.
Promote Video Across Channels
Extend the reach of your videos by promoting them across multiple channels. Share your videos on social media platforms, embed them in blog posts, and include them in email newsletters. Cross-promotion helps increase visibility, engagement, and the likelihood of attracting organic traffic.
The Importance of Video SEO Tactics
Optimizing your video content for search engines is crucial for improving organic visibility, attracting a larger audience, and driving organic search traffic to your website.
By conducting keyword research, optimizing titles, descriptions, and thumbnails, utilizing video transcripts, and incorporating schema markup, you can enhance your video SEO!
Want to talk about creating a video SEO strategy? Email us, jcosco – at – tippingpointlabs dot com. Or call 617-332-8261.
A special thank you!
We partnered with our friends at 3 Media Web to have them author this post and we authored this one for them about ways to improve a website with video.
About the author: Adrian Aguirre, Sr. Digital Strategist at 3 Media Web. Adrian has years of experience in digital marketing, with solid foundations in search engine optimization strategies and Google Ad campaigns. He loves to help his clients gain brand visibility from qualified audiences by finding the right strategy for each client’s niche.
3 Media Web is a digital marketing and web design agency changing how businesses succeed online. With 20+ years of experience, our unique approach to end-to-end digital experience optimization helps set your business apart from your competition.