Video SEO, Get it Right

Video SEO, Get it right. 

In recent years, video production has increased as more businesses are realising the benefits of using it to promote their business. Not only can quality video content increase awareness, it can also help to boost SEO efforts and help you build authority as an expert in your industry. Businesses who regularly use video content in their marketing strategy experience significant increases in web traffic from search in comparison with businesses who don’t use video at all.

The value that video can bring is recognised by businesses and search engines, but to really see results, you need to have a good video SEO strategy and even better video content. In this guide we will guide you through some of the best tactics and strategies to help you improve your video content and implement a strategy that benefits your business and SEO.

#1 Make it Relevant

This may seem obvious but it’s surprising how many businesses get it wrong. Your content should be valuable and relevant to your target audience.  When a video is really valuable to your audience, it will help to increase your authority and most importantly build trust. Customers who trust a brand are more likely to buy from them.

#2 Build Interactive Content

Keep viewers engaged by incorporating interactive elements into your video content. Whether it’s an annotation, a caption or some element of gamification in your video, the more interactive and engaging it is, the more likely your visitors will stay until the end.

#3 A Video Sitemap

The bots that currently index content can’t read visual content such as images and video. As a result, if your vide is not properly set up it can remain invisible to these bots. A video sitemap is a really effective tool if you want your video to be indexed. It works in very much the same way as a traditional XML sitemap, but it is created exclusively for video content.

#4 Meta Descriptions

Following on from the previous point, Google needs to be prompted with text, so it understands what your video is about. Meta descriptions are a powerful way to do this. For each video that you create, write an informative, engaging and compelling meta description that Google can understand. Incorporate your target keyword in the first three to four words of the description so that emphasis is placed on this as a key search term.  Ensure that any headlines or meta descriptions that you create accurately describe the content of the video.

#5 Use YouTube

YouTube is the second most popular search engine with countless searches carried out every day. Even if your video doesn’t rank on your own domain, it may appear towards the top of the search results if it is suitably optimised and published on YouTube. Both Google and YouTube use a series of tags to understand what your video content is about. If you provide too many tags it will just cause confusion so be strategic in your approach, use your focus keyword, choose some secondary but closely related keywords and use one word but descriptive search terms. However, not every video that you produce for your business will be suitable for YouTube. The videos published on this website should be quite generic and published for a broad audience. Most people who will come across your video on YouTube are there to learn or to be entertained rather than to make a purchase. Businesses should focus on creating high quality videos that can function on their own, content that will help users understand complex topics or processes which relate to your industry.

#6 Focus on Shareable Content

Creating a high quality video is not just about creating content, it is about publishing something that your audience can benefit from. To boost your chances of your content being shared it should be creative, unique and actionable. Make your video stand out from all the others for the right reasons. The quality of the production can really help, and a professional video production company will be able to help you create visually appealing video content.

#7 Increase Attention

When it comes to creating a great video, businesses want to know what will really engage with their audience. There are many techniques and strategies that you can use to increase interest in the content that you publish.

There’s a three step process to create excellent content. Firstly, you need to define a problem that your target audience will relate to. Think about the problems that the product and/or service that you sell can solve. Secondly provide the solution, highlighting how the product or service that you have can solve their problem and lastly provide proof whether this is a statistic, case study, customer testimonial or your own expertise.

#8 Create a Transcript

Although video is designed to capture the interest of your audience through them watching what you have created, text is equally important, particularly when it comes to providing value for SEO. Transcribing your video or incorporating it into your blog along with related keywords will boost your SEO efforts. Some people will watch the video but then like a transcribed version to read and study again, particularly if your video contains actionable steps or is a tutorial or training video.

Using these top tips should give your SEO strategy a boost. If you don’t know where to start with video production or you are completely new to creating video content, it can be useful to see what competitors and industry influencers are doing. They know what works and most importantly what doesn’t so you can focus on creating high quality video content that adds value to your business and offers multiple benefits for your target audience. A professional video company will be able to assist with the production element of the video so all you need to do is to figure out what video content you would like to produce and how you would like to deliver it.