Video Optimization

Online video content has increased rapidly in popularity, and users are now learning to conduct visual searches. Website owners can produce home based videos in order to reach their target audience; when marketed properly with correct SEO strategies then you will get quick results with such videos and jump to the top of these visual search engines (such as Viewzi)

Most search engines are designed to index text and assess web pages – they cannot read images or videos. Your answer? Place your video in the middle of the page, surrounded by as much text as possible. The text around the video should be keyword rich. This is the place to optimize your title and the transcript (some sites have flash based transcripts of the images or videos – this is bad when it comes to SEO. You should put the transcript in a format that can be ready by the search engines.

Now, this one may seem like a no-brainer – but when people search for videos they nearly always add the word video in their search. For example, ‘kitchen sink install video’ might be entered. The text that you are using around the video should contain this word as one of the main keywords, and you should also target it in your description, page title and keywords list in the meta data.

Point to your video with as many link as possible both internally from your website as well as other locations. Don’t forget to add a video sitemap so search engines know where to look for video content; this will get your videos indexed faster. Put the main keywords in the URL when you upload the video file, rather than using a random naming system – you don’t want ambiguous URLs. When you upload videos, store all video files in a single directory for speed and convenience for both you and the search engines

When you have your videos on a page with competing videos, include an attention getting thumbnail so that your video attracts the users. Allow users to add reviews about your video, comment on it and leave feedback. You should moderate the user feedback and reviews, and glean what info you can about the customer base. This also adds fresh content to your site!

Use videos wisely – they can be a powerful tool!