How to Use Video SEO to Make Your Videos Rank Higher
Shane Barker
Founder @TraceFuse.ai | The Amazon Review Expert | E-commerce Strategist | Influencer Marketing Specialist | Keynote Speaker
You’ve got your website SEO strategy right and have managed to get truckloads of visitors. But what about your videos? You’ve spent a lot of time and effort to create videos which may not be giving you the desired results. This is where video SEO can help.
YouTube is the second largest search engine and has over 1.5 billion logged-in users every month. But the impact of video SEO is not restricted to YouTube. Before we get into the specifics, let’s find out what exactly video SEO is.
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What Is Video SEO?
Video SEO, just like website SEO, aims to rank your videos in search engine results for relevant keywords. There many ways to give your videos greater chances of ranking higher in the search results.
Today, videos are everywhere. You can watch them on your laptop at home or the office or on your mobile device on-the-go. Due to a huge amount of videos created every minute, it has become tougher to rank in search results.
Getting ranked in search results has got a lot to do with your website’s authority. It also depends on how your website ranks for video searches and how focused it is on videos.
8 Video SEO Best Practices
Now let’s take a look at 8 best practices you can use to improve your video SEO and get your videos to rank higher.
1. Choose the Right Hosting Platform
Choosing the right video hosting platform is critical for the success of your video marketing strategy. The choice of the platform depends upon your final goal.
Do you want to generate traffic, brand awareness, or get some leads? You need to decide this first before selecting a video hosting platform.
If you’re looking to generate brand awareness, YouTube and Vimeo may be good options. However, you should also look for other platforms if you want to send traffic to your website.
YouTube and Vimeo are already saturated with tons of videos. This can make users feel lost in an ocean of videos.
Platforms such as Wistia might be a better choice for businesses looking to increase website traffic. The prime reason for this being that the platform inserts SEO metadata by default. This can help improve the chances of your videos getting indexed.
2. Use Attractive Thumbnail Images
Your video thumbnail is one of the most important aspects of your video SEO. The thumbnail is one of the first things that the searcher will see. So it has to create an impact that can prompt the searcher to click on the video.
Think of your video as a book and the thumbnail as its cover. Only when the cover is attractive will someone feel like opening the book. You should always make sure that you put as much effort into your thumbnails as you do into actually creating your videos. Try to add a human element to them as well.
For instance, Moz takes time to take photos specifically for their thumbnails when they shoot their Whiteboard Friday videos.
Continue reading this article on Shane Barker's blog.