There’s a lot of research out there that proves video has become an essential aspect of online marketing. Make the most of your videos, and your video SEO rankings, by focusing on the following tips.
1. Keywords
Does it seem like we keep harping on keywords? Why yes it does and this is intentional. Keywords are the definition of your business/product/website and they need to also define your video. Use those keywords to describe the video and its relevance in titles, tags, file names and descriptions.
2. Video Sitemap
While this may feel like a duplicative process, it isn’t. Reusing those keywords here along with other useful data is actually reinforcing your brand.
3. YouTube et al
Publish your video content on all sorts of social media sites and platforms but make YouTube your top priority. YouTube is the second largest search engine in number of search queries and it’s owned by Google; making this the first stop for your website video. So in addition to hosting the video on your own website, add it to YouTube and other sites as well.
4. Speed
It’s important to optimize your video for load time or you’ll lose your audience. People have very little patience online so you need to give them what they want when they want it. Along those lines, create videos that don’t open until someone clicks the play button. Automatically loading videos can slow down the entire webpage and chase away valuable site visitors.
5. Be Social
So much of the video element is social. It starts with your concept and how people will react to it. That’s actually the beginning of the social plan and should help you determine who your audience is and where to best reach them in the social realm. But what may be the most important aspect is making your video easy to share. Sure there’s the old clip and paste URL method. Then there’s YouTube with its easy buttons on the page for sharing. And now you can (and should) also have those buttons connected to your video on your webpage for one-click social sharing of the original video URL.
6. Stay Focused
You’ll get all sorts of advice on the length of the video and SEO rankings but the real guideline here is to say/do what you have to say/do and take as long as you need. A how-to video may take a long time to fully explain the topic while a viral video may literally be only a few seconds long and it’s goal may be just to make people laugh. The best advice here is to stay focused and on topic. Blabbing on and on about off-topic information will surely turn off your viewers and send them elsewhere.
These Filament tips should help you use video to improve your SEO rankings but, please, take a step back and be logical. Don’t make a video just to make a video. Have a goal in mind, a target audience and then make a video using our tips. You’ll find that this is the real recipe for great video SEO rankings.
