Today, we want to share what to do when you have a video finished and ready to go. I guess you are reading this and thinking “I upload the video and that’s it, right?”, well, it’s not that simple. We see our clients making the same mistakes over and over again, that’s why you are reading this article, so you will do it right improving the video SEO.
WHAT IS VIDEO SEO?
Video SEO is a set of techniques that help increase the ranking of your video in video search engines or search engines. Applying these best practices boosts the visibility of your video and it will appear ideally among the first in the search results.
Follow the next steps to optimize your videos:
STEP 1: BRANDING CHANNEL OR PAGE
It may sound funny to remember it, but we saw plenty of times how people upload videos to their personal Vimeo / YouTube account, and that’s a big mistake. It is essential to have a social media page or a YouTube branded account, so then users can research about your brand, and they can be educated and convinced to proceed with the purchase you intend them to make.
STEP 2: CREATE AN ENGAGING TITLE
Prior to even start thinking, ask yourself? What is my video about and how can I interact with the right persona? Think about keywords your leads can search for. The main search engines and tools to always keep in mind are Google and Youtube.
STEP 3: CREATE GREAT LOOKING THUMBNAIL
Thumbnails are important because it is the first image that a viewer will see before to start loading your video. Thus, it will be a crucial factor for the user to decide whether to watch your video or not. Also, the thumbnail will be the image which will appear when someone shares your video or if it appears in Google search.
To create the thumbnail we recommend exporting from the video a frame which highlights what the video is about. Also, it is a good idea to include the title of the video in the thumbnail image. Don’t forget to keep the branding style guidelines. You can use Photoshop. Another good tool we recommend is Canva.
STEP 4: DESCRIPTION
The description is important not only for the users to know what your video is about, but also as part of the SEO structure which is the right words that search engines will use to push your video to the top results. Here, it is as well a good place to share external links. For example: Is the video talking about some features of your product? Then share a link inviting to visit your website, where you share more info about it.
STEP 5: TAGS & HASHTAGS
Tags depending on social media are used in a different way. For Example: In Instagram and Linkedin tags (@) are used to tag people or businesses. Tag people and businesses who appear in the video, if they accept the tag and have a big community connected will help to arrive at more people. YouTube tags instead will guide the viewer to find your video in the search results. It will also help to appear as related videos, in YouTube for example. There are plenty of tools which you can use to research the most efficient tags. It is good to have this updated and reviewed it, from time to time.
Hashtags (#) are used to highlight keywords about the topic related to the post/video. They will help search engines to show your post when someone is searching or following these keywords.
STEP 6: BUTTON LINK / CARDS / END SCREENS & ANNOTATIONS / CTA
A card, button link and end screens vary depending on the platform. Here you can link to your CTA and you can invite your viewers to watch more of your videos or to subscribe to your channels.
Users upload to YouTube an average of 300 hours of video per hour, therefore it is essential to follow these steps in order to don’t be overlooked.
STEP 7: CAPTIONS
Depending on the platform you have to burn your captions with the video or to integrate them with the platform you are using. For example, if you upload the video on Instagram, you should keep the captions with the video because most of the users watch the content muted. But when you are uploading to YouTube or Vimeo, you should add the captions at the settings page. You may think, why so? Because search engines will dig deeper and analyse data from captions to decide when and what is suitable to show you. Also, another important matter is to upload captions in different languages, if your potential leads are using a different language than the one from the video.
When your videos are completed, we provide you with the captions file which you can upload directly to YouTube/Vimeo.
STEP 8: PUBLISHING SCHEDULE
First, upload the file privately so no one can see it. Then, fill it with all the information we’ve mentioned in this article. There are many tools to schedule the publishing of your content across different social media. Analyze your potential leads and think when will it be the best time to share your video.
Once your video is active and public, write a comment, ask a question meant to start a conversation and to engage. This will help with SEO. Also, don’t forget to answer every person who comments on the video. If people talk about the video or share it, that will help to reach a larger audience.
STEP 9: EMBEDDED VIDEO AT YOUR WEBSITE
Every video has a different goal so you will have to think about where to embed it properly.
For example, if you do a testimonial video it would be convenient to create an article or a case study page talking deeply about this project. Or, if you produce a company video, place it at the landing page or in “About us”. Remember, videos sell faster than text.
I hope you enjoyed the reading and will use these tips in the future.
Remember to work out a good Video SEO: Rank higher and get more traffic.
