What Is Video SEO?

Read Time: 3 minutes

It’s no secret that video is a powerful marketing tool, holding potential for great engagement and a high conversion rate. As more brands jump on board the video train, it’s become increasingly important to stand out. While creating unique, quality content plays an important role in video success, video SEO is equally, if not more, important.

Video SEO involves technical and creative changes to your video so that it ranks for specific search terms.

Let’s explore the main steps involved in video SEO and how to optimize your video content.

Main Steps Involved in Video SEO

While SEO involves a layered and multi-faceted strategy, there are a few key steps in the video SEO cycle.

1.     Index Your Videos

Certain metadata needs to be added to your videos to help search engines identify exactly what the video includes and how it meets user intent. Consider the following examples of metadata and structure to optimize for improved indexability.

• Title of the video
• Description of the video
• Length of the video
• Upload date of the video
• Thumbnail image for the video

There are a few technical steps that can be applied to further ensure that your video has been properly indexed, such as using a schema markup or including a sitemap link within your robots.txt file.

If these technicalities sound intimidating, then our team of website experts is here to help!

1.     Improve the Ranking

A few tweaks and updates help to improve video ranking in the search results. By focusing on the following video aspects, you have a better chance to rank and give your viewers what they are looking for online.

• Title – should be direct and to the point
• Thumbnail – should be custom, bold, and visually powerful
• Description – should offer further information on the video content
• Length – should match the user’s broad intent
• Upload date – should be relevant to the search query
• Captions – can help crawlers better understand the relevance of the video
• Links – optimize internal linking so that the video is well-referenced

Study Data for Improvement

One of the best ways to better Video SEO is to study the results and identify ways to improve. Track performance over time and assess which videos are performing well, which are doing badly, the various sources of traffic, and more.

Depending on which video platform you use to share your content, there may be further adjustments that you can make.

How to Improve Video SEO Rankings

Creating video content is an investment, so it’s important to streamline your video SEO for the best return on investment (ROI). Here are a few effective ways to boost video SEO rankings.

Hire an Expert SEO Team

Video SEO involves optimizing your video to be indexed and ranked in search engine results for strategically chosen keywords. An expert SEO team is skilled in strategy and has updated knowledge, with the ability to boost results and meet SEO goals. Hand over the technical demands of video SEO to the experts, and watch the results.

Choose the Correct Video Hosting Platform

There are different platforms to host your video, and each offers its own perks. The correct video platform will depend on your end goal, so it’s important to do your research on the best hosting platform to meet your needs. For example, YouTube and Vimeo are effective for building brand awareness but not for getting traffic to your website.

Improve Viewing Experience

Have you considered your audience’s viewing experience? There are several ways to boost the viewing experience, increasing engagement and improving ROI. For example, you can insert a video transcript with captions so that the viewer can watch the video without sound.

Focus on Copy

While video is a visual medium, the copy still plays a key role in SEO efforts. For example, adding an overlay of compelling text on the thumbnail image can be the difference between clicking on the video or not. Other ways to improve SEO rankings with copy include paying attention to the title and description of your video, making sure that they are engaging, and including targeted keywords.

Don’t Rely Solely on SEO

Applying SEO fundamentals is one of the best ways for your video to rank in search engines, but it’s not always reliable. Google’s algorithm is constantly changing, and audience preferences can adjust at the snap of a finger. So, it’s important to produce quality, relevant and engaging content to begin with.

Expert Video SEO Services for Improved Rankings

Are you inspired to create powerful and engaging video content? Whether you want to create a product explainer video, a brand advertisement, or a company highlight reel, our video production services team has you covered – but that’s not all!

At Connectica, we also offer expert SEO services to improve your video SEO, helping you achieve your ranking goals. Contact us today at 877-816-2259, and let’s get started!