If a picture is worth a thousand words, could a video be worth a million? It’s possible, especially if you’re employing best practices for video SEO. It’s important to know how to drive organic traffic through your videos to truly harness the power of video content.
If you don’t know where to start with video SEO, you’re in luck. This article has some of the best-kept video SEO secrets, and we’re going to share them with you. This article will share some essential information on how to use video SEO to drive organic traffic to your site.
What Is Video SEO?
SEO is a much-used term that some people need help understanding. You may already be familiar with the term as it applies to other forms of digital content like blogging, but SEO stands for search engine optimization.
Video SEO operates similarly to how you would use keywords to boost a blog post’s ranking in search results. You’ll use video SEO techniques to drive organic traffic from search engines to your video content. When we say organic traffic, we mean traffic coming from natural search results instead of sponsored or paid content.
Employing the right video SEO tips and tricks can help your video content appear more prominently on search result pages. When your video content is front and center, more people are likely to view it. In fact, according to Forbes, three out of four people never scroll past the first page of search results. So, if you want your content to grab attention, you’ll need it to rank as high as possible.
Driving Organic Traffic
Are you looking to generate more organic traffic? Create value-based content. It’s that simple. Before investing in high-quality video production, you need to think about the substance behind it.
The consumers who would likely use your product or service are your target. So, what type of internet searches are they conducting? What questions do they need answered? Discover trending topics that align with your brand’s mission and assess how you can create video content centered around what people want to know.
Once you’ve identified subject matter relevant to your audience, devote time and resources to creating impactful content. Compelling storytelling has the potential to go viral and elevate your brand to the next level, whether through authenticity, humor, or creativity. In fact, according to Harvard Business Review, the greater the emotional response to a video, the greater the number of shares it is likely to receive.
Putting it in the fewest words possible and creating quality, value-based content will make more people want to watch.
Video SEO Secrets
Secret #1
Timing is everything. Once you’ve created compelling video content, it’s time to think about when you’ll post it. Sprout Social notes that the highest social media engagement typically occurs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays between 9:00 a.m. and noon. Look at their breakdown of the best times to post on each of the most popular social media platforms to maximize your video’s reach.
Secret #2
Optimize your video. As we mentioned before, video SEO is relatively similar to SEO for blog posts. When creating a title or video description, incorporate popular search terms related to your video content. But be careful to avoid keyword stuffing, which could negatively impact your content’s search result ranking.
Need some help finding relevant search terms? Simply click on the magnifying glass icon in Google’s search bar. It will bring up a list of searches currently trending. See if any phrases or keywords may apply to your video and then incorporate them into your video’s metadata, such as the title, description, or tags. You can also use Google Ads keyword planner to brainstorm more ideas.
Once you’ve identified some keywords you want to use, conduct your own search of those terms. If there’s a lot of competition for that particular search phrase and you have a less well-known brand, your content may not rank as high in the search results.
On the other hand, if there isn’t intense competition for a particular search term or phrase, your content is likely to feature more prominently in the search result rankings.
Secret #3
Load time matters. Make sure your site is responsive and that your video content loads quickly. A faster site will help your video content appear higher in search results. To increase your video content’s accessibility, you can also select a high-quality thumbnail image, ensure your video is mobile-friendly, and generate closed captioning.
Successful Video SEO
Are you looking for some inspiration? See how other successful brands are creating compelling video content. For instance, in the Dove Real Beauty Sketches video, the brand asked an FBI-trained forensic artist to draw sketches of women based on their descriptions alone. He created two sketches—one based on the women’s description of themselves, the other based on a stranger’s perception of them. The result drove home the brand’s messaging: “You are more beautiful than you think.”
According to Dove, more than 50 million people viewed the video in the first 12 days of its release, and to date, the video has been viewed almost 180 million times. While you certainly want to incorporate best video SEO practices into your marketing, Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches campaign demonstrates the power of good old-fashioned storytelling and why it should be at the heart of every video marketing campaign.
Want to craft your own compelling video content? Consider enlisting the help of a professional production team like Pretzel Logic Productions. Partnering with the right production company will help boost not only your search result rankings but also your return on investment. Bottom line? If you want your video content to be seen, working with a company that truly understands your vision is best.
