How To Optimize Video For Top Search Engine Rankings

video marketingIn these contemporary times, many businesses are making use of the internet to market their goods and products. Additionally, individuals who want to exchange ideas with others are also appropriating the web in order to do so. This reality is not surprising given the fact that the internet is an incredibly effective way to share information quickly. Although there are a variety of ways that individuals can advance their personal or professional goals through the internet, video sharing is often one of the most effective tools available. (This is especially the case since it is easier to reach page one of Google with video than with a web page.) If you opt to use video sharing to market your products or exchange information with others, keep the following things in mind:

You’ll Miss Out If You Don’t Try

Although most businesses are spending money to improve their position in the search engine pages through the effective implementation of SEO techniques, few businesses are employing similar tips and tricks to make their videos popular. Since less people are using SEO techniques to generate more page views for their videos, the competition isn’t great. To be specific, it’s reportedly 50 times easier to reach the first page of Google’s search results than it is to do so with a web page. Since this is the case, marketing your brand or ideas with a video is an especially good idea!

Google Can’t Read The Content Of Your Videos

At this point, search engines do not possess the technological advancements necessary to determine what’s transpiring in a video. So in order to make sure that your video content is being tagged correctly, you’ll need to make the most of metadata. Metadata is the information that exists regarding your video, and the search engines will use this information to decide what to put on the results pages.

Google Has A Video Index

When the Google search engine displays videos in its results pages, the results emerge from a querying of the Google video index. This index is basically a listing of all the videos Google is aware of. Anything that has gone public on YouTube will automatically be included. Moreover, it can include videos from your site. To optimize your opportunity to crawl to the top of the search engines with your video, be sure to create a video sitemap. A video sitemap is basically a text file that includes pertinent information regarding your video content such as the video’s title, run time, subject matter, and intended audience. You can use an online video platform such as Buto to create a video sitemap for you. If you want to create the video sitemap yourself, refer to the step-by-step guide on their blog.

Videos Aren’t Always A Part Of A Keyword Search

In short, people don’t always do a keyword search that involves a request to see a video about a concept. Nevertheless, your video could show up in that individual’s search engine results if it is relevant to their keywords. To demonstrate the relevance of this concept, let’s say an individual wants to learn more about how to prepare a vegan dessert. In the search engine, they may type “How To Prepare A Vegan Dessert.” As you can see from the keywords entered, there was no request for a video demonstrating how one can prepare vegan desserts. Nevertheless, by creating a great video sitemap, you could still wind up in the top two or three positions of the search engine results listing. And this should be your goal. Remember that Google is only going to display blended results (videos and articles) when it believes the videos are directly relevant to the keyword phrases the searcher enters.

YouTube

As many social media experts know, YouTube is the second most popular search engine around. However, unlike Google-which can’t discern much about the information contained in your videos-YouTube knows much about its videos and uses this data to determine where the video ranks in its search engine results. The factors that determine search engine ranking with YouTube include metadata, the number of shares and comments, and the date they were added (new videos rank highly). Additional information that affects search engine result rankings includes the view count, rating and flagging, and incoming links. As you may have discerned from this information, most of the ranking considerations result from the actions of viewers. Yet while your ranking may seem like it’s beyond your control, developing great content and maximizing SEO opportunities can help you earn a great spot on the YouTube search engines.

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Fred Meek has over 20 years of video production experience and owns MindBOX Productions in Austin, TX.
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