Believe it or not, video plays an important role in search engine optimization (SEO). Optimizing your video content for search is just as important as optimizing written content. When done well, video SEO can have lasting effects on your brand’s marketing strategy.
When thinking about video SEO, quality video is key. Creative, engaging, quality video increases the metrics that help your videos rank both on Google and on video hosting platforms like YouTube. These platforms want to showcase content that viewers spend a lot of time watching, engage with and share often. Making innovative, fresh video content will improve those metrics and drive your SEO up overall.
But beyond quality, there are specific things you should do to improve how your videos and their associated web pages rank.
Ranking individual videos
Videos should be
optimized for search
themselves to improve the chances of viewers finding it, whether on a search engine or a hosting platform. This is particularly important for video content that’s part of an inbound marketing strategy.
Here are a few things you should do for every video to ensure your videos rank well for SEO:
• Write a good title:
Your video’s title should include the keyword you’re targeting, but it should also be informative and compelling. Well-written titles help the viewer understand what they’re getting and urge them to click through, which increases your video’s click-through rate (CTR).
• Write a thorough description:
Video descriptions are where you have the opportunity to tell the search engines, hosting platforms and audience what your video is about. Make sure you’re using your target keyword in the description text, as well as other relevant words and phrases within an informative description. But most of all, make it interesting, so search users are enticed to click!
• Use video tags with relevant keywords:
Most video hosting platforms let you add tags. Just like the other areas of your video data, your target keywords should show up here, too! Make sure you don’t keyword stuff; only use relevant keywords you hope to rank for.
• Add a transcript to your video:
Platforms like YouTube allow creators to add transcripts to their videos for accurate
closed captioning.
But uploading a written transcript also packs your video’s data with more words that can aid in SEO! Search engine crawlers can index transcripts, which can help you rank.
Using video to improve website SEO
While your individual videos should be optimized for search to aid in discoverability, those same videos can also be used to improve the SEO of your website and landing pages. Embedding videos into your web pages can improve rankings overall, for a more comprehensive SEO strategy.
One way this happens is by increasingly the inbound link potential to your website. If your video is shared by a lot of people, these inbound links help bolster the page where the video lives. Web pages with lots of backlinks tend to rank higher on Google because they’re seen as popular and high-quality.
You can also improve your conversion rate, and therefore your rankings, by
adding videos to landing pages. Videos are succinct and engaging pieces of content that can push a potential buyer to take action in those critical moments before a sale. Conversion rate matters to your overall SEO strategy, so video can increase the length of time a person spends on your landing page and increase your conversions, effectively bolstering your ratings.
Of course, both video-specific and website SEO can be improved even further by pairing your videos with a comprehensive promotion strategy that gets your content seen by as many people as possible.
Looking for more ways to improve your video marketing strategy? The Spin Creative team can help.
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About Us
Spin Creative is a video production company and creative agency helping marketers create winning video and creative strategies that engage, inspire and activate targeted audiences. Spin is headquartered in Seattle with offices in San Francisco and London, serving brands around the globe.
