How To Optimize Your Video Content for Search Engines
Have you heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) yet? If you are someone who is serious about making a career out of being an online content creator, chances are that you have.
SEO is, in a nutshell, a way of creating content so that it will be ranked highly in a search engine’s result pages. This will most commonly be Google but it can be Amazon, YouTube, or Etsy, etc., too. If someone is searching for the terms, “travel vlog”, your travel vlog video will appear on the first page if you have optimized well, and that’s what you want.
Most of the information out there about SEO is aimed at website and blog content, aka the written word. It’s all about keywords, article length, images, accessibility, and adding unique value.
There is also a lot of information about optimizing your websites themselves so that they have the best chance of being picked up by search engines and ranked highly, this might include things like domains, loading speeds, and site titles.
But did you know that there are ways to optimize your video content in such a way that it will be highlighted by the likes of Google?
No?
Well then, this is your lucky day.
In this article, I’m going to tell you 3 easy and quick ways to optimize your video content so that it can perform as well as possible online. Optimizing your content will greatly improve your organic traffic, your click-through rate, and your search engine ranking. All of this is important for building your content empire.
Let’s get into it.
1. Titles and descriptions
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The first thing that people see when they look at your content is the title, shortly followed by the description.
When someone is using a search engine to find the content that they want, these two factors will decide whether they click on a certain video over another.
It is also two of the most important things that a search engine will pick up on whenever it is ranking pages. Don’t forget that it isn’t a human who sits and cyphers through content and decides who goes at the top, it is a machine algorithm that scrapes content and finds what it needs based on certain criteria.
You need to make sure that your titles and descriptions are relevant and engaging.
You will need to hit the most relevant keywords and key terms in your title to rank well within a certain topic. So if you are creating travel vlogs you will need travel keywords in your title, such as, “travel”, “travelling”, “nomad”, “trips”, “global”, and so on. You can use lots of great apps and services to help you figure out what keywords you need for your topic.
Make sure the description includes them too but also make sure that the description is engaging and adds value for your viewers. Why should they watch your video? What is it about? Why is it more important than other videos in the same genre?
Capture your users’ attention and promise them answers to their questions in about 3 short and snappy lines.
2. Video thumbnails
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Content is all about the visuals and the visual hooks.
When someone is searching for a video to watch, one of the first things they will see is the video thumbnail. If the thumbnail is non-existent, low quality, or doesn’t look relevant, search engines aren’t going to rank your video well because they won’t deem it to be useful for any viewer.
Make your thumbnail attractive, relevant, and high-quality.
Make it something that grabs attention and shows people that your video is one they want to watch. Filming in a great filming location is one great way to do this. Upping your visual game will help you out greatly with your rankings.
If you need some good examples, the best thing to do is to go on to YouTube and Vimeo and check out the best-performing videos and accounts on there. Check out their thumbnails and see what inspiration you can draw from them.
3. Transcripts and subtitles
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An increasingly important aspect of SEO is accessibility.
Search engines will rank a piece of content higher in their results if they deem the content accessible for a large number of users.
With video content, it is really important that you include a written transcript of any dialogue in your video and include the option for subtitles or captions to be used.
These are also doubly effective because it means that any keywords in your transcript can be picked up by the search engines’ scraping technologies. When they are searching through content for relevant terms, it is much easier for them to find them in video content when there is a transcript attached.
It might take an extra 10-20 minutes in your video posting process but it is absolutely worth it.
There is a whole world of content out there on the Internet and in today’s climate, you need to make sure that you are taking all the necessary steps to get your content into the front row.
If you aren’t engaging with any SEO practices for your video content, you are missing a big opportunity.
So, go out there and get to it!
