One of the most productive tools you can use in SEO is videos. Videos are versatile, just like articles, and many more people are using them nowadays, especially on YouTube. There are many more video-sharing sites on the internet, but by far, YouTube is the biggest one, which is why it's at the center of Video SEO.
More than one billion users are on the site, and all have watched one billion hours of content daily. With that level of impact, you can use video SEO on YouTube to boost your digital marketing success. But how do you do it exactly? How can you synergize online video marketing with SEO?
Most effective Video Marketing SEO Tips for better Results
Let's begin…
Create Short and Relevant Content
Because of TikTok, other social media sites nowadays are looking into making video shorts accessible to people. In our fast-paced world, we don't have time to watch hour-long videos since we no longer have much free time. If you want to get people's attention on your YouTube channel, you should engage more in short content.
But since “shorts” are short, how does it impact time and engagement? Relative watch time is the aim of shorts, and shorts are counted the same as regular-length videos. So how do you make shorts, exactly?
Since shorts don't have titles, you should grab your viewers' attention in the first five seconds of the video. Also, remember that shorts loop, so you should make the video's pacing just right. As usual, making your content relevant and compelling would be best.
And most importantly, your aim in the video should be to inform, which can give way to endorsing your products, site, or subscription to your YouTube channel. You can even put keywords in your video to generate more leads.
Improve Video Title and Description
Just like how you do for a blog post, the title and meta description of a video play a huge role in video rankings. That said, you should spend more time crafting your title and description and take advantage of them by incorporating keywords based on your keyword research.
It sounds simple enough, but with the proper utilization of your title and description, your chances of ranking higher will be increased.
Use Engaging and Customized Thumbnails
The video thumbnail is the first thing your viewer will see, making it an essential part of your video. How? Think of it as a first impression. If you made a bad first impression when viewers looked at your thumbnail, their likelihood of clicking and watching your video will be reduced significantly.
Think of it sort of like the front cover of a book. Have you ever felt interested in the book because you liked its front cover? It's like that but with thumbnails.
In Wistia, you have a 30% higher pay rate when you customize your thumbnail for your content. Of course, this is given if your thumbnail is engaging, relevant, and compelling.
Just putting a random picture as a thumbnail can make your video dull and uninteresting. This will prompt your viewers to go to the suggested videos instead and watch something else.
Don't miss to Add Video Transcripts
If you watch videos on Facebook nowadays, you will notice that many of them have closed captions or transcripts that you can read while watching. It's convenient if you're adept at reading subtitles or don't want to disturb your roommates while browsing. However, transcripts have a lot more use than that.
Not only do transcripts make your content more accessible to a wider audience, but they can also make your videos more scrapable by bots, potentially increasing your rankings based on your content. This is because transcripts act as page copies.
Hence, your video can be translated into indexable text that bots can be used for queries, effectively increasing your rank.
With this, you can use transcripts to boost your SEO campaign. In fact, it just became popular recently with the rise of YouTube and its monetization back in 2008. With this, YouTube is making videos as advertising formats for sponsors.
Companies began utilizing transcripts for their SEO campaigns. And because YouTube is available in most countries, a lot of companies all over the world, such as the U.S., Canada, Australia, and more, began using transcripts to boost their campaigns.
One example of this is Australia. Recently, Australians between the ages of 16 to 64 were reported to spend more time browsing on social media due to the pandemic, and 4% of them are creating and posting videos on video-sharing platforms.
Because of this, various SEO Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney companies are offering video transcription services to help them reach out to video-sharing platform users, namely on YouTube and Vimeo.
Optimize your Video Size and Quality
Video clarity and faster loading time are two of the most overlooked aspects of creating video content. It's a shame since there are a lot of tools online that you can use to optimize your video's clarity and loading times.
That said, if you want your video to be as straightforward as possible and faster for the enjoyment of your viewers, you should aim for an aspect ratio of at least 640 by 360 pixels.
Anything more than that is significant but remember, the higher your video quality is, the slower the loading time will be, and you should know that some people don't have good internet access.
Not only that, an increase in loading time by at least 5% is associated with a higher bounce rate. If you don't know the bounce rate, it's the percentage of people interacting with your videos once and then skipping over to other content.
Lucky for you, there are many online video compressors, and most of them are free. Other tips to optimize your video content include using mp4 and WebM for your formats, allowing for much better streaming rather than forcing visitors to download your videos, and getting rid of audio from the muted videos when editing.
Promote Videos at the Right Place
Lights, camera, action! Your video is ready to be seen by the world, but how do you get more views? Promote, promote, promote! Embed it in blog posts, share it on social media, and send it to your email subscribers.
Another effective method for promoting your videos is to share them on forums such as Reddit or Quora, but be careful not to come across as spammy by indiscriminately adding links. Instead, offer the links when they can be of genuine help to users.
By promoting your videos in the right places at the right times, you can generate a strong demand for valuable information, potentially winning you more dedicated subscribers who appreciate your content.
Measure your Video Content's Performance
You can use several tools to measure your videos' performance, and it's highly recommended that you should do so. The metrics will help you identify if your videos made good numbers, what topics your viewers want to watch from you, and determine the other factors that entice your viewers to watch your content.
One helpful tool that you can use to analyze your metrics is Google Analytics. It's a tool that can help you analyze what videos bring traffic to your YouTube channel and the percentage of people visiting your website after watching one of your videos.
YouTube Creator Studio also brings you analytics on each of your video content. It also tells you about other information such as general watch time, subscriber demographic, subscriber count, and even duration of time watched.
Final Words
If you're looking to improve your online video marketing as per SEO, there are many ways to make it more efficient and effective.
Implementing the right tips will help you make your content more engaging, and many more people will watch your videos, increasing your chances of ranking higher. Videos are an effective tool you can take advantage of in SEO. So, if you need any professional advice in creating high-quality and SEO-friendly videos, feel free to connect with us.
