Video is the most effective form of multi-media since it combines audio, visuals and motion to make a high impact. A business that includes videos in its web marketing techniques can easily engage a large number of viewers.
Google is now encouraging blended results, which means videos have a much higher likelihood of making it to top rankings than simple web pages. Although video is so effective not many business owners are taking complete advantage of it yet; the competition is not as high for video SEO initiatives as with text content.
The use of videos is much more than their creation and uploading. Here are the ways to effectively use videos in improving traffic to your website and getting top rankings.
Where to Upload Videos
YouTube has almost become a search engine and is the best place to upload videos for maximum viewing. Moreover, all videos placed here get indexed by Google. After uploading video content on YouTube, embed it onto your own website. Google’s ranking algorithm uses the number of views that videos get in both places to decide video rankings.
SEO-Friendly Keywords in Titles, Transcripts and Tags
It is not enough to have excellent video content and put it in the right places. For Google algorithms to understand the content quickly, the video must be substantiated with appropriate text, both on YouTube and your business website.
SEO rules are common to video and other forms of web content. First, you need to select appropriate and effective keywords that users are most likely to enter in search strings; a little research on competitor sites can help.
Make your video title SEO-friendly and preferably include “video” in it, since users often enter this word in the search string. Do not keep it too generic and your webpage is likely to rank high on search engines.
Next, add a text description as an introduction to what the video is all about. You also need a transcript of your video content. Manually creating the transcript is a time-consuming task, but tools like SpeechPad make it an easy job.
If these descriptions, transcripts and tags are not on the same page as the video, it’s useless for SEO purposes. The best and most effective layout is having the description above the related video and the transcript positioned beneath it, both for the YouTube video and the embedded version on your business website.
Submit a Video SiteMap to Google
Besides videos, animated PowerPoint presentations, slide shows and screen captures also work equally well for SEO. Google is not able to read this Flash content while making indexing decisions. To ensure it works for SEO, you need to submit a video sitemap to Google, the format of which is explained on their Webmaster Tools site.
Backlinks
Even if your YouTube video starts getting top rankings, it won’t automatically drive web traffic to your website. Publicize the URL of the embedded video on your website by creating backlinks on the comments section of popular blogs and in social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Backlinks take time to improve your page rankings, so be patient. It must be noted that backlinks on poor-quality pages or too many backlinks created all at once can work negatively, since it appears as spam to Google’s algorithms.
Create a YouTube Channel
Create a dedicated YouTube Channel; choose a name that represents your industry and even contains your chosen keywords. It is a bit of an investment, but you get the advantage of auto-play banners and the ability to evaluate the performance of your channel and that of individual videos using YouTube Analytics.
YouTube videos have a much higher probability of making it to the top of the rankings as compared to individual website content. YouTube has now started rewarding videos being actually watched; not just their links being clicked on.
The duration that viewers play the videos is counted, so the solution is to create videos with engaging content. This YouTube video needs to be backlinked to your website to allow it to compete in rankings with well-established sites that have been using SEO tactics for a long time.
Author Bio:
Erik Gaandt is a freelance tech writer and SEO enthusiast. He understands the importance of SEO good practices and he enjoys sharing his insights on various marketing blogs. Get more information about SEO and web hosting reviews by visiting WhoIsHostingThis.com
About Joseph Adediji
Actually this helped me quite a bit I might start doing this strategy! Thank you so much!
Hi Sergio, am glad this is helpful.
Joseph Adediji recently posted..Increase Performance of Android Phone with Advanced Mobile Care
Videos have great result in SEO. If you search about everything in google, you will find videos from youtube in page one. It means that google gives good position in SERP for videos. As beginner i want to learn about how to improve my sites ranking from videos and i got this information. This posting is complete guidance for me to optimize my sites from videos. Thanks Joseph for sharing this information
Hi Jas,
am glad you found this post helpful, I hope it helps you get better rankings for your videos in SERPs.
Joseph Adediji recently posted..Top 5 Useful Android Apps for Bloggers
That is great advice. I will try it on my site. I have already opened a youtube account for the site, but I haven’t made any videos yet. My site has real trouble getting in the first 30 pages of google with the key words. I sure hope it works.
Thanks
John
Great info, still there is no explanation how those videos should be made and content / duration of the videos
Hi admin
Very nice info about youtube videos
Yes it is very effective way to increase Avg time on site n reduce bounce rate
But you gives all full details about it nice
Thnx for sharing…
I have had good success with video but some of my best Youtube videos got flagged and removed. Does anyone know a way around this?
Nice post Joseph
In fact, we can bring traffic more with the help of content, images and videos these days as Google employed lot of changes in its algorithms.
Hi Joseph, I actually logged into a youtube account for the first time in probably 3 months, and it’s amazing how improved it is. I don’t remember analytics being nearly what they are now…can’t wait to start taking advantage of it. Thanks for the solid advice.
Hi Colin,
youtube has really improved, make sure you start using it regularly.
Joseph Adediji recently posted..5 Superb Tips For Getting Traffic From Twitter
thank you bro, i was searching for a tutorial like this.Hope it works and one question Can i rank my video in youtube ?
Hi Vishnu,
Of course you can rank your youtube video by getting more views to it.
Joseph Adediji recently posted..HTC One X+ Review and Specs
Youtube, Dailymotion, Vimeo are really great to everyone. Youtube #1 website for video. To increase SERp ranking youtube is also best for your targeted topic. Hope this comment could make a perfect look of this post.
Thanks Joseph really enjoying your post.
Thanks for this great and good information, this will be of huge help in SEO and search engine exposure
kulhead recently posted..Basic Things You Must Know Before Making a Video Post
I’ve been posting videos on my Youtube channel and was wondering what else I could do to improve rankings and SEO. Adding a transcript (with the help of SpeechPad) is something I’ve not tried yet. Thanks for sharing.
I didnt knew that videos too have sitemaps, thanks for sharing these great tips with all of us.
Mujtaba1993 recently posted..Nokia Asha series vs. Samsung Rex Comparison- Part 1
Hi
I definitely agree with you videos are improve your site ranking and traffic.but thanks to give me more detail about it.
Thanks again