Benefits of Video SEO
After the recent updates of Google Panda and Penguin, we have established that website ranking does not depend only on adding a high number of links but it is more about generating high quality content that will natural attract links. One of the ways to generate high quality content and attract users with short attention span is using video for SEO, but video SEO is still extremely underutilized in the world of search engine optimization. Brands who incorporate SEO video are going to be better off in terms of search engine ranking in 2017. As you can see from the following infographic shared by business to community, 79% of internet traffic in 2018 will be generated through video content. So, in the world where more than half of population is going to search for videos, why should you not invest in video SEO?
Although in contemporary digital marketing, marketers are talking about important of incorporating video in SEO, but videos are not utilized as much as infographics, images and written content etc. In order to find out more about what video SEO is, how to incorporate video SEO in your search engine ranking and how to create effective videos for SEO please read below:
What is Video SEO?
Video SEO can be described in two ways, one for using videos for optimizing your webpage for SEO and second is how to optimize your videos for SEO.
Video SEO Optimization
Talking about video SEO for better ranking of search page, then a general idea is to instead of writing long pages of content, if you upload short videos that describe your content are mostly likely to be watched by your web visitors rather than reading the entire web page.
In terms of Video SEO, on how to optimize your videos for search engine optimization, you need to know how to SEO optimize your video for the specific platform you are using. For example, video SEO for YouTube channel will be different than video SEO for your social media page. The reason for difference in optimizing the videos for SEO for a YouTube channel or a video channel and a web page is due to the different search criterion for different platforms. For example, cute baby videos would be a search term commonly used on YouTube, but if you are looking for the same searches on Google then the number of cute baby videos search on Google would be significantly less than YouTube.
The reason for the difference is that YouTube uses a different criteria for suggesting videos and ranking them. For each individual user of YouTube, the video rankings are dependent on the views and views are dependent on the video suggestions, which are generally suggested to viewers on the basis of their most watched videos. This does not mean that you should not optimize your YouTube videos for search engines, but statistically speaking 15-20% of your traffic comes from search engines, whereas 80-85% of your YouTube video traffic comes from YouTube. To find out more about how to rank your videos on top on YouTube, read the YouTube SEO video tutorial below:
YouTube SEO
When you are working on promoting your YouTube videos, then the easiest way to use YouTube SEO is the YouTube suggest option. When you put a word in search tab of YouTube, it literally suggests the different previous searches people have used. So, when you have everything available already, what else could you need, e.g. if you are uploading cooking or baking videos and if you type in how to bake cookies, you will get a number of suggestions below on what kind of previous searches people have used.
So, for starter the first thing you need to know in your YouTube SEO video tutorial is to know how to use the suggest option and optimize your video titles accordingly. If you want to take the suggestion feature to next level you can put an underscore before your first word and YouTube will even show you the search suggestions words that come up before your keyword. If you want to effectively use YouTube video SEO, then add the keyword at least once to your title.
Write Descriptions
One of the common view you will hear on optimizing your videos for SEO is to add descriptions to your YouTube videos. Adding a description of 100-200 words will help YouTube understand what your video is about and then suggest it to viewers accordingly.
Say your Keywords
Yes, YouTube can understand what you’re saying in your video. Maybe not entirely but at least 90% of what you say, so your video optimization process starts before you make the video. If you want to use SEO for your YouTube video, then use the keywords at least once or twice in the video, so that YouTube can pick up on the keyword and rank it accordingly.
Linking to what was previously said about keywords, if you upload a transcript of your video, it will help YouTube understand exactly what your video is about and it will be ranked accordingly. The purpose is to make it easier for both YouTube and users to know what your video is about.
Use YouTube Analytics
What could work better than using YouTube analytics for YouTube Video SEO, all you need to do is follow three simple steps:
- Go to YouTube dashboard
- Click on analytics and traffic searches
- Click on YouTube Search and get the results you’re looking for
Seo video
Engage your Users
Your YouTube ranking depends highly on user engagement. Unlike search engine ranking, your YouTube SEO ranking depends highly on the number of likes, comments, subscriptions to your channels and your video shares. So, if you want your video to show up in suggestions and improve its ranking then you need to encourage users to comment on the video, like it and share it. One of the ways you could do that is by providing viewers with incentives on sharing or liking the video. Moreover, you need to be actively engaging viewers of your video by replying to their comments, if you are providing them feedback, or showing gratitude for participating they will feel more encouraged to come back the next time and comment on your video.
Brand your Channel
YouTube video SEO is not just about optimizing your videos, it is also about optimizing your YouTube channel. If you have read different SEO video tutorials you might have noticed that they mostly talk about the videos and not the channels. But your SEO video ranking depends highly on your channel as well. You need to appropriately brand your channel, by adding a brand description with keywords in it, adding a logo, and maybe also adding an introductory video to your channel. In terms of YouTube video SEO, it is important to understand that the majority of your views and rankings will come from suggestions, and if you don’t have subscribers for your channels then your channel might not appear in other people’s suggestions.
Therefore, promote your channel as much as you can, align your page logo, design, description, video titles, and tags according to the content of your videos and upload transcripts for everything to give YouTube a better understanding of what your channel is about.
In addition to above tips for YouTube video SEO, there are several software and Google extensions that are for free and you can add them to chrome for getting keyword suggestions and video SEO suggestions for optimizing your videos. The key for video SEO is to know which platform you’re using and how the search words on your specific platform could differ from other platforms and then Search Engine Optimize your videos accordingly.
Now that you read a SEO video tutorial for your YouTube channel, you might want to know how you can SEO optimize your web through video SEO, to find out about how to use video SEO for better search engine ranking of your blog, web page, or social media page read below for SEO video tutorial and benefits of video SEO:
Interactive Content
If you want to promote your webpage through videos, then one way to do that is create a YouTube channel for your business and upload interactive videos on that channel and add a call to action for visiting your webpage from the video at the end of each video. This will direct the number of visitors from your YouTube channel to your webpage.
Thumbnails
Your thumbnails are tags that show viewers what the video is about and if the thumbnails are not relevant to what the viewers are looking for they are not likely to click on the page, so always add relevant thumbnails to your videos.
Value Addition
This is rule for all types of content whether audio, video or written. Your content, your video and your audio should be adding value to users or should be beneficial to them. That is the only way they are come back for more content. If your content does not add value, then you’re not likely to have engaged users.
Video SEO is going to be one of the most influential form of SEO in 2017 and upcoming years, because the focus of digital marketing is increasingly shifting towards using videos for SEO. It is important for businesses to learn and adapt video SEO for promotion and growth of their products and invest in successful marketing. The key point to remember for any business is to know which platform they are using and then optimize their videos according to that specific platform.
Great ideas about video seo and marketing your brand and blog promotion through you tube.
Thank you for sharing.