It is no longer a secret that video is one part of online marketing. Currently, videos are one of the most sought after content, because most people prefer watching videos rather than reading articles because they are more visually interesting.
Videos also have a higher audience engagement rate than articles, but unfortunately, there are still many people who don't use videos as part of their SEO strategy. This is probably because there hasn't been much discussion about video SEO.
Video SEO itself is more technical than SEO for articles or other content. However, if you can optimize the SEO of your uploaded videos, videos can be a strong type of content to increase brand awareness for your brand or traffic on your website.
What is Video SEO?
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| What is Video SEO? |
In the current digital era, video content is increasingly popular and has become one of the best ways to reach audiences. Through the use of video SEO, businesses can improve their video search rankings on platforms like YouTube and Google making them easier to find by potential customers. Apart from that, video SEO can also help increase user engagement and conversions through relevant and quality video content.
Simply, video SEO is about reaching a wider audience and getting more video views from search engines like Google. This involves optimizing your video content so that it ranks high when people search for the topics your videos cover.
This ensures viewers click on your video and not a competitor's video. If done correctly, this will result in growth in views, subscribers, and website visitors (if you have a website). But how do you get your videos to rank on Google? And what best practices should be followed? Let's find out.
Important things in Implementing video SEO
When it comes to marketing, a well-designed video can have a positive ripple effect throughout your campaign that is too powerful to ignore. Video is something that 75% of online users have interacted with over the past month, something that 90% of people find helpful when making purchasing decisions AND that generates brand awareness, recall and more.
But videos cannot be created or released in a vacuum. If you want new viewers to discover your videos, you need to focus on SEO just as you would on a blog post or whitepaper you just published. When it comes to video SEO practices, if you really want to rank higher with your videos, there are a few important things to keep in mind.
1. Video Title
If you really want to rank higher in terms of SEO with that great new video you just recorded, you need to start by giving it a catchy title. Your goal is to be descriptive (so people know what they are about to watch) and engaging. If someone is hesitant to watch your video, a title that raises questions is a great way to motivate them to click “Play.”
Regardless of what your title is, make sure you include relevant keywords. This is one of the many ways video SEO is actually very similar to general SEO practices for content like blog posts. Think about the keywords you are targeting and make sure at least one of them is included in your title (in the most natural way) for best results.
2. Video Description
You also want to make sure that you include informative, SEO-rich, and short text descriptions to accompany your videos. Don't give away the entire video, or people won't have a reason to watch. Instead, perhaps formulate your description with questions that the video itself will answer.
Again, this serves a dual purpose. Not only will it help your video rank higher (especially if your description includes one or more relevant keywords or phrases), but it will also be another opportunity to motivate people to get off the fence and watch your video in the first place.
3. Thumbnail
They say you can only make one first impression, so you might as well make it good. For many people, the first impression they have of your video won't even be in the title - it will be in the thumbnail. Choose a single, powerful, compelling image from your video that represents what someone will watch and that motivates someone to keep watching.
Always ask yourself the following question - "if I knew nothing about this video, would this thumbnail make me want to watch?" If the answer is "no," keep trying until you find one that is a resounding "yes."
4. Transcribe Your Video
Video transcripts serve several important purposes, all at the same time. For starters, there will be certain people who want to enjoy the information contained in your video but can't actually watch or listen to it - transcripts help you get clicks from these people too.
But more importantly, transcripts allow search engines like Google to index related videos - something they couldn't do on their own. The video itself only has a title and description. The actual meat of the video isn't something that Google can properly analyze and index (yet). For now, video transcripts serve that function and they are an important part of your overall SEO strategy for that reason.
5. Video Sitemap
If there's a recurring theme in all of this, it's that if you want to rank higher with your videos, you need to make it as easy as possible for Google to find and crawl your content. Video sitemaps, which are XML documents that describe your videos, are one of many ways to do this.
A video sitemap is something you submit to Google that allows it to understand your content WITHOUT having to wait for it to automatically crawl your pages. Think of it like the “Fast Pass” you get to skip the ride lines at Disney World.
Everyone rides the rides - you just ride faster. As an added bonus, video sitemaps allow you to take advantage of advanced functionality such as country restrictions, platform restrictions, expiration dates, and more.
6. Make Your Videos Shareable
Lastly, one of the best ways to rank higher with video is to make sure your content is not only easy to share, but also that people actually want to share it. Upload your videos to neutral and popular platforms like YouTube for easy access.
If you include links on your website, make sure the “social” buttons for networks like Facebook and Twitter are always included. Don't make videos that are too long - try to keep them under ten minutes or less - to not only increase overall views, but also increase the likelihood that someone will share it.
When it comes to best SEO practices for videos, “highly shareable” should always be a top priority because the more likes and retweets your videos get, the higher they are likely to rank.
How do I rank my video high?
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| How do I rank my video high? |
It's important to have an effective video SEO strategy so your content can appear higher in search results. Here are four tips to improve your Video SEO optimization. There are several video SEO methods that can be applied, namely:
1. Determine where to upload the video
One of the questions that is often asked is what platform should be used to upload videos. The most widely used choice is YouTube because this site offers free services and definitely appears in Google search results.
YouTube has also been proven to have millions of subscribers so it will be easier to get lots of new audiences. As mentioned above, videos uploaded on YouTube usually get a higher ranking on Google compared to videos uploaded on other platforms such as Vimeo or Dailymotion.
This certainly helps so that your videos can be watched by many people, but this can also be an obstacle if you upload videos on your own website. If you want to use video to increase website traffic, keep in mind that it is quite difficult to get people off YouTube.
Use the description box available on YouTube to put a link to your website or place the link at the end of the video so that your viewers are interested in visiting your website.
2. Determine the right keywords for your video
The first step that must be taken is a step that is similar to SEO tips for blogs, namely research and determining keywords. Keywords are also an important part of video SEO. Keyword research can help you find out keywords that are currently popular and widely searched to help you determine the concept or theme of the video. You can also estimate how much traffic you will get.
Even so, the way to research keywords for videos is different from determining keywords for blog posts. There are two reasons why this research method is different. First, if you use YouTube, most people find your videos from recommended videos.
Not many people will find your video because they search for the title of your video themselves. The second reason is that Google and YouTube have different ways of working. What people search for on Google is usually different from what they search for on YouTube.
Therefore, you must be careful in using keywords when uploading videos to the internet. Use the YouTube Suggest feature to look for keyword suggestions or inspiration. Similar to Google Suggest, you only need to type one keyword you want to use in the YouTube search column. The suggestions that appear are keywords that people often search for on YouTube.
Apart from that, you can also use TubeBuddy Tags to improve video SEO. This is an extension for Google Chrome. The use of this extension is to see tags used by other people. From TubeBuddy, you can see which tags are frequently used and which tags make the video appear on the first page of YouTube Search.
YTCockpit is another research tool that you can use. This tool is specifically designed for YouTube. It's easy to use, you just need to open the website, enter a keyword, and YTCockpit will provide several keyword suggestions and metrics for each keyword displayed.
If your YouTube channel has received sufficient traffic, you can also use YouTube Analytics Stats to see what keywords are most popular on your channel. You can find the analytics page on the YouTube dashboard. Then, select traffic sources, and click Youtube Search.
There you can find the most popular keywords from your channel. From the list of keywords, there are two things you can do. One of them, you can optimize the SEO of existing videos. You can add relevant tags and add keywords to your video description. Then you can make videos with those keywords. By doing this, you can ensure that your new video will better match those keywords.
3. Create interesting videos
Of course, to attract attention, an interesting video is a must. This is a very important video SEO step because an interesting video will make someone watch the video from start to finish. Also make sure that the content of your video is informative for viewers and matches the keywords you are targeting.
One important tip, focus on the first 15 seconds. The reason is, YouTube can record whether your video attracts attention after the first 15 seconds someone opens the video. This also affects your video ranking because they will place videos that can attract attention in 15 seconds in a higher rank.
Don't be afraid to make long videos. Most videos that appear on the first page of YouTube search results are quite long and usually last more than 10 minutes. Long videos also encourage your audience to watch your videos longer, which of course will help your video's SEO.
4. Optimize videos on YouTube
The first thing you can do to optimize YouTube video SEO is to include your keywords in the video title. Make sure the main keyword you use appears in the title. The title is the first part to be indexed by YouTube and even Google. Including keywords in the video title will also maximize click-through-rate (CTR).
Apart from the title, also pay attention to the video description. Limit the description to a minimum of 200 words, because the clearer the description you provide, the easier it will be for YouTube and Google to recognize the content of your video.
YouTube's deeper understanding of videos can help your videos appear in related recommendations or suggested videos. YouTube video tags may not have as much influence as they used to, but they are still important. Make sure your keywords are included in these tags.
YouTube can detect some words spoken in videos with up to around 90% accuracy. When YouTube reads your target keywords, they can understand that your video discusses those keywords. The same as SEO techniques in writing, don't repeat keywords too often because it will read like spam.
As mentioned above, CTR also needs to be maximized. YouTube uses CTR to rank videos. If a user searches for a keyword and selects your video to watch, it will increase your CTR. The higher the CTR you get, the higher your video ranking will be.
To increase CTR, make sure that you use an interesting and informative title. But don't use click-bait titles, or titles that deceive viewers just to increase the number of video views. Apart from the title, the thumbnail is also important so you have to make it look attractive.
The final step in maximizing CTR is to write an interesting description. YouTube displays the first 125 characters of your video description. These 125 characters must attract attention so that people want to click on your video.
5. Channel Authority
Maybe you rarely hear about channel authority. In essence, videos uploaded on channels with high authority and a strong community will rank higher than videos uploaded on new channels. There are several ways to build channel authority for your YouTube account.
First, build your channel image. Why is your channel different from other YouTube channels? This is the first question you should consider. Viewers will ask why you created this channel and what they can expect from your YouTube channel.
If you have consistent messages and topics on the channel, YouTube users will be more encouraged to subscribe or subscribe. You can also upload a header and logo on your YouTube channel that describes the image of your YouTube channel along with a tagline so that your audience knows the focus of uploading videos on your YouTube channel.
Page descriptions can also help with the branding stage, especially if you include target keywords to inform the focus of your YouTube channel.
Creating playlists can also help increase your channel authority. Make sure that your playlist can help represent your channel. It's a good idea if you use long tail keywords to name this playlist.
One of the factors that increases channel authority is the number of subscribers or subscribers to your channel. You can create a channel trailer to increase the number of subscribers, because through a channel trailer, you can immediately introduce your YouTube channel to potential customers.
The duration of the video trailer is usually no more than one minute and during that duration you must be able to answer the questions below:
- Who are you?
- Why should people watch your videos?
- What makes your channel unique?
- Why should people become subscribers to your YouTube channel?
Another way to increase subscribers is to ask the audience to subscribe at the end of the video. This method is widely used by YouTubers, even famous YouTubers. If someone watches your video from start to finish, there is a chance they will subscribe to your channel.
Don't forget, enter your YouTube channel link on a website that you can always rely on and your social media.
6. Upload high quality videos
High quality (HD) video is a video that has a clear and high quality image without looking broken or blurry.
To make HD videos, you need a camera or handycam because the recording results will be much better than those recorded from a cellphone, unless your cellphone can produce high quality images. YouTube really prioritizes viewer satisfaction so they much prefer high quality videos.
7. Share your video
There are many social media platforms that you can use to promote videos, such as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. You can also offer your videos to popular news websites that have millions of visitors every day. This can help you reach more visitors.
Apart from social media, you can also use forums to expand your audience reach. Upload your video link in a related and relevant thread. You can also create your own thread to share videos. Don't spam when sharing your videos on forums.
If this happens, your account and videos could be marked as spam. You should be patient and wait until the results of the backlink increase your channel subscriber numbers and video views.
Apart from social media and forums, you can also use email. Inform your subscribers that you have uploaded a new video so that these users will get premium content from you, and your video can get a number of views via email recipients.
You can also embed or place your video on a blog or website. Integrating content with videos by embedding can help you get backlinks. The most common way YouTubers promote their videos is by putting links to other videos at the end of their videos.
The same as subscribers, people who watch your video from start to finish will be more likely to watch other videos that you recommend.
8. Optimize Your Videos’ Titles
Google searches for keywords to find video results. Therefore, you may have to focus on finding the right keywords for Google because it is a bit different from YouTube. You can do this by using Google Suggest to see keywords that usually rank high on Google for videos.
Conclusion
These are some video SEO tips that you can do. Hope it helps, OK! If you want your YouTube video to get a high ranking, apart from optimizing the video and making interesting videos, it all comes back to the backlinks you get. The more quality backlinks you have, the higher your video will rank on Google search results pages.