Videos are a very effective tool to attract more people, draw attention, and generate more leads for your business. Marketers and business owner success must contain a video SEO strategy, that will optimize the videos for YouTube, Google, and other search engines.
Videos enhance the customer experience and elevate a brand’s online presence. This happens because of the emotional connection a video can create. When a prospect is exposed to video content that has a compelling story, captivating graphics and a smooth animation can create brand awareness.
Videos are the main reason to boost your traffic and branding. Here are some tips on how to create an effective video SEO strategy.
Video Search Optimization
What video SEO means. It is a strategy to leverage videos to drive traffic to your website and appear higher in search results. When videos are optimized, the chances of your appearing on the first page, increases.
Importance of Video SEO
If you ask how videos can help your SEO strategy, the answer is simple. When your videos come up in the Google search results, people stream them as a trustworthy resource.
With so many people viewing your videos, Google finds it as content worth keeping on the top. Your brand is visible to so many eyes at a time, that enhances brand recognition. It’s a win-win. Your chance of acquiring new leads grows, that you can convert with your other marketing tactics.
Every day thousands of video contents are produced. You need to optimize your video content with the best video SEO tips, that can help YouTube crawl your content.
YouTube is the second larger search engine, so ranking high on that video streaming platform is very important for every marketer. More than one billion users actively watch videos on YouTube.
Video has become the most consumed digital media, if your business won’t have an effective video SEO strategy, you are missing out on many prospects.
Why you need a Video SEO Strategy?
Without a video SEO strategy, it is difficult for your video content to rank high. And if the videos are not optimized, it decreases your conversion rates.
Tips to Rank Higher Your Videos
- Optimize your Video Contents for Mobile Devices
Optimizing for mobile is perhaps the most vital way of taking your content in front of the world. Stats show that from 2012 to 2018, the total daily amount of time spent by an adult on a mobile device in the US alone jumped from 88 to 203 minutes.
More than half of all video streaming happens through a mobile device.
I hope these stats are enough to push you to get your videos optimized for mobile. Though desktops are still there and people do use them for work, most of the entertainment quotient is done through Smartphones.
Videos targeted towards PCs are still a traffic source, but if you want your video to rank higher in the SERPs, mobile optimization is the key.
Just two years back, mobile viewing has surpassed desktop viewing regarding videos. And the truth is, this gap is widening with time. By the next two-five years, desktops will become obsolete, giving way to mobile devices.
- Text Optimization – Keywords
The crawlers of search engines cannot index the images and audios, everything depends on the supporting texts. So you need to optimize your videos with keyword-rich texts that match with the searches.
You need to know the newest keywords people use for searching for a video.
Video transcriptions will add the substantial text, it needs to rank up and earn recognition from search engines.
Bearing in mind that Google is nothing but a database of texts, the more texts and relevant keywords you have in your video, the more it gets crawled. Video transcription is like a page copy for the crawlers. So it’s very important for YouTube SEO.
YouTube gives a description field that fits 4,850 characters. This is a prime spot for Google crawlers to search and index your videos. So ensure it has enough keywords.
- Use Social Media Networks
One of the most effective video SEO tips is to harness the power of social media. Even sometimes, when Google fails, social media (leading networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) helps in boosting your SEO. Marketers with experience know the power of social media.
Users of social media searching for content that entertains them, give them information or solutions.
People love videos much more than only text.
Facebook has altered its algorithms and prioritize videos in its news feeds. Now anyone can share a video directly on Facebook. Native videos on Facebook perform better than shared YouTube links.
- Custom Thumbnails
If you want to boost your CTR then simply come up with captivating thumbnail graphics. Thumbnails are the first things that a user sees about your video when there’s no option for autoplay.
If you can grab their attention just by the graphic, be sure that they will click to know more about the video content. That is the primary function of an engaging video thumbnail.
They affect the rate of clicks on your video. Custom thumbnails also make your video stand out from the rest.
Target a keyword relevant to your niche and create a visual representation around it. That’s the door towards successful video optimization. Now with this comes the bigger challenge of choosing the right video thumbnail.
There are a few best practices for enticing thumbnails that drive engagement. E.g., the graphic must be in high resolution so that it doesn’t get pixelated.
The design must be colorful (try to align with your brand identity) and must not be a click-bait. Click-bait thumbnails are a strict no-no for ethical SEO. You may put a logo/watermark on the thumbnail to make it look professional.
However, this is optional. Use perfect contrast with the 16:9 aspect ratio.
And lastly, put considerable facial close-up graphics, as these work the best. YouTube will give three screenshots of your video to choose from. But it’s always better to use a custom graphic that explains the subject matter.
You may also use some text as a visual cue for your audience. These are the tricks you can implement to optimize your video for search, mainly on YouTube.
- Upload your Videos to Multiple Platforms
This is another effective tip to strengthen your video SEO strategy. The more you upload your videos to different channels, the more Google will crawl it. Which in turn, will increase the chance of your target audience to find it.
Apart from self-hosting on your website homepage or landing page, do upload the video files on YouTube positively.
Because that video streaming giant is the key to your SEO success. Some marketers rely only on self-hosting, but unfortunately, this practice is inadequate when you are eyeing at a higher rank on the SERPs.
Also, including video on your homepage is crucial for your website SEO.
- User Engagement
Focus on user engagement. The more your video content can engage people, the higher is your chance of showing up in the Google search results.
However, there are a few metrics that you must consider. E.g.; the Session Watch Time. This happens to be a pivotal measurement factor for evaluating user engagement. YouTube’s prime motto is to keep people hooked to its website, so it wants more and more people to stay engaged with the videos.
The videos that keep watchers hooked to their content are mostly favored by YouTube and tend to rank higher on the channel. Next comes the User Intent. Understand the user’s intention behind a specific search, just like Google does.
Google knows what exactly a person has in mind while searching. Use a title that answers the user’s intent, that will catapult your video content to the top of the SERPs.
Lastly, Watch Time. Unlike Session Watch Time that determines whether a video has been watched or how many have been viewed, Watch Time is all about the actual time spent watching a video but not the percent watched.
A 10 minutes video with 50% watch time will rank higher than 100% completion of a three minutes video.
The first 15 seconds is crucial to hook your viewers.
- Learn The New Trends
Learn the latest trends is useful because aligning your content with the current trend implies more relevance on your part. And relevance brings more people closer to your video content.
Your video must not mimic the trend but serve as a fresh resource that the audience would love to spend time and watch. This strategy will elevate the status of your brand and your videos.
Also, there are several more SEO tricks to boost your videos. You must keep experimenting since SEO is a dynamic process that constantly changing.
So, don’t be afraid to experiment. You might not get the desired success in the first go, but you will get to learn many things. SEO is no one-size-fits-all formula since every business is different.
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