Whether you intend to upload your video content on YouTube or other platforms, you will need your video to rank high on the search engine result pages (SERPs) to help your target audience find your video.
While most digital marketers are more concerned with ranking their blog posts, putting the same effort into video content is essential. Research says most people are more likely to watch a video than read a lengthy blog post, so the importance of video SEO should be emphasized.
Good video content is only complete if it gets to the intended audience. The only way to achieve this is to strategically place your videos in a way your audience quickly sees them. Here are some SEO tips to help you achieve better video rankings:
1. Choose the Right Video Platforms
When selecting your video hosting platform, you must consider why you want your videos to rank. Do you optimize your video to attract new customers and visitors to your website? Or is building brand recognition and awareness more of your focus?
YouTube and Vimeo can be possibilities to consider if your primary goal is building general brand awareness rather than driving traffic to your website. The issue with this is that most traffic goes to them after your video is indexed.
2. Select Keywords Wisely
Like blog posts, video content also needs to contain strategic keywords. When picking these keywords, ensure they can get you volume and are what your audience will likely type in on their search bar. An excellent way to get great keywords for your video is to thoroughly research before shooting. Plus, SEO tools like SEMRush, Google Keyword Planner, and Google Search can go a long way.
These keywords help your video stand out from the competition and rank higher on the SERPs.
3. Insert Keywords in the Video Title
After adding keywords related to your audience’s search intent, ensure you include them in the video title so your video appears on top when a viewer searches for that keyword.
Remember, these keywords must naturally occur in the video description. But this doesn’t mean you should stuff the title and description with the keywords. You should ask yourself, do they sound captivating to entice your target audience to click? This should always be your focus when crafting a title and meta description.
For instance, if you’re doing a product review video on Rolex, the title of your video should include ‘Rolex.’
4. The Thumbnail Image Should Be Captivating
Aside from having the correct title and description, your video thumbnail must be enticing and captivating to the visitor. Thumbnail images are what the viewer sees when your video pops up on the SERPs. Therefore, appearing first on the result page is essential, but having an engaging thumbnail is more important.
This prompts the viewer to click on your video instead of the other ranked videos. For instance, if your video is about how to skate, your thumbnail image should depict something of that nature, and it would be wrong to use a different image idea.
5. Ensure Your Page is SEO Optimized
While optimizing your video to rank higher, it’s essential to factor in the rest of your page. This means your page should also be optimized, containing relevant keywords, quality content, and tags that would make Google algorithm rank it high. Sometimes, it’s possible to have a top-notch video that is properly optimized, but it does not appear at the top of the result page. The usual culprit for this is that your page isn’t fully optimized.
Additionally, it’s crucial to ensure that the page on which the video is embedded is highly relevant to the video itself. Refrain from inserting videos on irrelevant website pages, as this would increase your chances of low ranking.
6. Make the Video the Focus of The Page
Most times, website owners have complained that they have done the necessary video SEO. Yet, their videos still need higher view and play rates. After going through their pages, it was discovered that the videos intended to be ranked were embedded far into the page end.
This naturally makes it difficult for viewers to find and view. When placing a video on your page, ensure it is the main focus of that page and should be put first. This way, search crawlers are likely to come across it and rank it accordingly.
7. Include Video Transcript
Be sure to include video texts and captions. This makes your videos more readable and scrapable by search bots and viewers. Additionally, with the inclusion of captions, your video is more likely to have a more extensive audience reach and visibility. Video transcripts are necessary as they enable viewers to watch your video even while it’s mute. These transcripts also help your video rank for more queries.
Conclusion
Video marketing can be termed successful only when it gets to the intended audience and passes across the intended information. This is why having your videos ranked high is as crucial as creating quality videos. Video SEO is relatively challenging to control because Google’s algorithms are constantly updating. However, following the above tips can increase your chances of ranking higher on SERPs.
