Videos are powerful SEO tools, given that they are much more likely to achieve top search engine results, yet often they are overlooked. Part of the reason why videos are much easier to rank is that there are fewer videos to compete with. However, the key to ranking at the highest level possible for top keyword terms is to apply a variety of sophisticated SEO tactics.
1. Use third party video websites
One effective SEO tactic is to stream the video from a third party website, such as Youtube, and embed the video on a website. By placing the video on a third party website, the company will receive internal traffic from the third party website while also drawing traffic to the website upon which the video is embedded, when the embedded video content is ranked high on search engines.
2. Include additional content with the video
However, the webpage that has the embedded video content should have other forms of content as well to entice the user to visit the webpage. This can be as simple as a transcription or can include additional information.
3. Use transcripts for SEO
Video transcripts can have a powerful impact on SEO because Google’s search engine cannot understand video content, but can use the transcription to appropriately rank the video content. The transcription can also improve the user experience by allowing users who cannot watch the video to instead read the transcript.
4. Include links in the video
Make sure to include links back to the main website as a way to direct traffic. The video can also mention the website by showing its URL or having the video explicitly encourage the user to visit the website.
5. Include relevant keywords in the metadata
The key to getting a video ranked for a particular search term is to include relevant keywords in the metadata. Metadata includes the video’s title, description, file name, tags and URL. The description is the most important part of the metadata, since it not only helps improve search engine rankings, but also improves the user’s experience.
6. Submit a video sitemap
All websites, especially those websites that have a large number of videos, should consider creating a video sitemap. A sitemap is a page accessible to crawlers that can access every other part of the website. This allows crawlers to find all of the videos and rank them accordingly. The sitemap should e submitted to Google Webmaster tools.
7. Link to video content
Remember to also link to videos from other websites. Links should include anchor text that contains relevant keywords, which will encourage search engines to rank videos higher for relevant terms. Including links to videos can also encourage users to move from an article on an article directory to the video on the main page, as many users prefer videos to text.
8. Always produce quality content
One factor that has always been important, but is getting increasingly more important, is the quality of content offered on the website. Search engines are increasingly using human raters to rank video content based on quality and relevance to search terms. For this reason, videos should not only have high quality standards, but must more importantly be highly useful to the user.
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