Image by Ron Hoekstra from libertyondemand.biz
Video SEO is the perfect solution to drive free organic traffic. Wondering how to do Video SEO? No worries! Because that’s what we’re going to discuss in this guide.
Videos are capturing the attention of online users like never before. Every social platform is prioritizing the ease of playing videos to gain a competitive edge over peers. This video craze is a sterling opportunity for your brand to popularize itself and draw more traffic to your website.
For this, you need to engage in video SEO, which involves the optimization of online videos posted by you so that they are indexed by the search engine and are ranked higher. This will allow the videos to appear in the opening sections of the result pages for all relevant keyword-based search engine queries.
7 Tips For Video SEO for Driving Higher Organic Traffic to Your Website
Google crawlers can’t spontaneously understand your video content. Hence, the videos must be contextualized with on-page content for dedicated and embedded video pages and metadata.
You may provide a complete transcript of the video or expand on the points discussed in the video to facilitate better indexing. In the section below, you can get an overview of ways to optimize your videos for optimum traffic inrush on the website.
1. Conduct Extensive Keyword Research for Video SEO
Researching keywords that you think leads may be using to search for relevant content is the initial step of video SEO. You can gain insights into long and short-tail keywords through:
- Dedicated keyword research tools like Ubersuggest
- Searching for particular content on Google to figure out the recommendations offered by it
- ‘Related Search’ and ‘People Also Ask’ features of Google
2. Create High-Quality Video Content
After identifying important keywords you need to create high-quality video content around those keywords. The most effective way to earn higher SEO rankings is to make videos with well-thought, scripted info. Then, leverage the power of a decent online video editor to make good-quality videos. While deciding on the various types of video topics, it is suggested to think like the customer and make content that they prefer or need.
3. Use Targeted Keyword For Naming Your Video File and Video Title
After identifying relevant keywords, use the same for naming the related video files before uploading them on YouTube or other sites. The portal’s algorithm can read the file name and associated video code. This will help in proper categorization. The video title should contain the keywords in a naturally fitting, clear, concise, and compelling manner within 60 or lesser characters.
4. Use a Tantalizing Thumbnail Image For Videos
Once your video is indexed, the video’s thumbnail will be the first to cross the sight of the searcher. It should be relevant and visually appealing to prompt the searcher to click on it. Thumbnails with human subjects and a series of changing images tend to have a high click-through rate.
5. Describe Your Video Effectively and Add a Transcript
On YouTube or other dedicated sites, your video must be accompanied by a short, well-written, and attention-grabbing description to brief audiences about what they can expect. Keep the Call-To-Action part short, with the most crucial information in the beginning.
You can add a transcript to facilitate those viewers who may watch the video by keeping the volume muted. Extra text around video also helps search bots understand the context better. Transcripts play a vital role in better ranking if they accompany long-form videos when they occupy the center stage of web pages. Always include the keywords in the description or transcript.
6. Leverage The Potential of Metadata, Schema, And Video Sitemaps
The schema uses markup containing metadata of video for providing direct info to search bots about the video’s content. The browser-readable markup language is used to provide info like video URLs, thumbnails, descriptions, etc., to search engines. This facilitates ease of content classification by search engines. Make sure to complete the webpage video’s structured markup with metadata in the code’s <head> section. Metadata must contain data related to:
- Video’s name
- Description
- Video thumbnail’s aspect ratio
- Duration
- Watch Counter
- Areas for which video can show up in relevant search queries
Once you fine-tune the video with a good video editor, incorporate suitable schema attributes in the markup for a dynamic feel with auto loops, controls, splits, and other elements. Video Sitemaps display appropriate aspects of the video content to search engines for ease of crawling. The sitemap entry showcases the page’s URL where your videos are hosted. Never block access to your videos for search crawlers with login passwords or robots.txt.
Tag Videos With Topic Relevant and Familiar KeywordsA good online video editor will help you create a killer video. But your efforts may be in vain if it fails to divert organic traffic to your site.
To avoid this, you should use keyword-laden tags that will alert leads about the purpose of your video. This is particularly helpful on dedicated video hosts like YouTube, whose algorithm uses tags for associating your video with other visual content of similar nature. This enhances the reach of your content. Use long-tail and popular keywords in the tag for better ranking.
7. Ensure SEO of The Webpage on Which Your Video is Placed
Video SEO may not deliver the expected results if the rest of the webpage in which the video is placed has not been optimized. Make the page content informative, high-quality, and pertinent to the video. Generic page content around the video will bring in poor ranking.
8. Use Video Outros On Dedicated Video Channels Like YouTube
You can optimize the viewing experience and direct audiences to your brand’s page by adding attention-arresting and relevant end screens or outros to videos posted on YouTube.The outros offer suggestions for viewing similar videos or display a strong Call-to-action for seamless navigation to your webpage.
9. Make Sure That The Video’s Content is the Most Recent
If your video is outdated or the video fails to impress audiences because more updated information is available elsewhere, it may undermine your video SEO efforts. Always review your posted videos to ensure that the content is contemporary and addresses the issues experienced by your targeted audiences lately.
10. Ensure Fast Loading of Videos
Search engine indexing is influenced by the speed with which your video loads and plays on the user’s device. Further, Google’s mobile-first indexing also mandates the fast loading of videos optimized for handheld devices. The search bot will skip if your video has limited bandwidth and keeps streaming.
Final Thoughts on Video SEO
Video SEO can play a decisive role in regularly driving a huge volume of qualified organic traffic to your brand’s website. If you adhere to the points discussed above, the results will be visible to you within a few days in the form of an exponential increase in site traffic, conversions, sales, and profits.
AUTHOR BIO:
A curious mind and am a passionate writer. Bryson loves to read, write, and watch movies. Nowadays working with Invideo. He is also a social media buff and tries to stay updated on everything happening around the world!