Optimizing your videos for SEO is necessary for a successful marketing campaign. This guide will help you get started with giving your video the best opportunity to
The Lucie Content Blog
A Comprehensive Guide on Optimizing Your Video Content for SEO
Video SEO is different from the standard SEO we commonly think of and involves employing a variety of optimization strategies that give your videos a higher chance of ranking on search engine results. The Lucie content team can help with the more advanced strategies, but these are a few to get you started.
1. Set Clear Objectives
Before you even begin creating your videos, set clear objectives and goals. Are you looking to educate or entertain your target audience? Would you like your video to increase your website traffic, generate new leads, or promote a particular product or service? Maybe your goal is more specific such as converting viewers of a product video to consumers of that product. Having a strong understanding of what you want your video to accomplish at the beginning of the planning process will make the rest of the video SEO optimization process go much smoother.
2. Choose the Right Hosting Platform
A video hosting platform comes with a ton of benefits that can help achieve your video goals. If the reason you want your video to rank highly is straightforward brand awareness, a free hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo may work for you. Youtube is the second largest search engine in the world and can play a huge role in driving traffic to your site when videos are embedded. Vimeo is a great high quality video hosting option with many unique features for delivering your high quality video to your viewer.
3. Add Video Transcript and a Description
Search engines are unable to watch your videos, so to interpret the content, some hosting platforms allow you to create a transcript. This transcript helps search engines to properly index videos. Videos with transcripts or captions are also more accessible to a larger audience. Hearing impaired individuals are able to follow along and better understand the context by reading the accompanying text. Viewers can watch your videos in quiet places without disturbing those around them.
4. Write an Interesting Title and Description
An intriguing title and description of your video will not only be more attractive to readers but also helps improve your video SEO optimization. Similar to SEO for blog posts, the title and metadata of your videos play a large factor in ranking higher on popular search engines. Incorporate your main keywords and phrases into the title and description but also keep it interesting. Put yourself in your customer's shoes. If you read that title, would you click to watch the video?
5. Use an Engaging Thumbnail Image
The video thumbnail image is significant because it is the photo searchers will see once your video has been indexed. Think of it like the cover of a book. Does it tell the story of the video? Will it make the viewer want to see more? A compelling thumbnail image that captures the attention of your target market will result in a far greater click-thru rate. The picture should be relevant to the video you're trying to rank for and it should be inviting. Humans interacting with one another or engaging in activities tend to attract the most attention and deliver the best conversions. For the best quality, create a custom image instead of using a cropped image from your video.
6. Add Video To A Relevant Page
Even if your actual video is great and full of wonderful content, it still may not be ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs) if the page isn't relevant or optimized. There is no point in embedding an SEO-optimized video on a webpage that has not been SEO optimized since a search engine will likely not properly index the page in the first place.
The video should also be relevant to the content on the page. For example, adding a makeup tutorial video to a page about hair products might not make the most sense.
7. Invest in Optimizing your content
Video SEO focuses more on making your video searchable and ranking higher on popular search engines like Google. This will bring your video to a greater audience and a bigger potential client pool. To keep the viewer on your page and actually watch the video, you should invest some time in video optimization. This means working with a great team to shoot the right content for your goals, having a great editor that understands how to get viewers to watch your video longer and distributing that optimized video to the right audience.
This is where Lucie can make an unmatched addition to your video efforts. Using our incredibly talented production team and years of experience, we will make sure that your video is created to tell the right story and reach the the best audience.
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