Video SEO and the Art of Being Seen
Previously in our blog we have covered the benefits of using video for marketing your business. In this post we are going to look at 4 easy points of Video SEO to make sure your videos are getting seen by the biggest audience possible. Most of the points apply to videos on Youtube as this where your video is most likely to be viewed as it is is the second largest search engine. As with website SEO your video content needs to be high quality and add value for your viewers and then you can look at the following:
Video Ranking Factors
- Thumbnails
Thumbnails refer to the small image that shows a viewer what they can expect to see in your video. As they are the first thing seen, often even before a video title, they are very important. Your image should be relevant to your content. Keep it the same ratio as your video, with 16:9 ratio being the ideal size. Don’t necessarily rely on a screen shot. Believe it or not Youtube thumbnails have trends, so it’s worth doing some research as to what’s hot or not. Finally make sure to include the title of your video which should include your topic keywords.
- Keywords
Keywords should be included in your title and in your video description. Take a look at what words your competitors are using in the videos that are topping Youtube search results to see what works. This will also help you see what type of videos are trending so you decide what content you should be making, as long as it’s relevant to your customer of course.
- More Text Additions to include
Transcripts, that is the conversion of speech into text, and captions which involve the dividing up of the transcript and time coding this text to sync with the audio, are important for google indexing as the search engine can crawl text. Don’t forget to also include a link back to your webpage in your video description.
- Watch Time
Watch time is the total amount of time your video is watched. Youtube is more likely to recommend those videos with longer watch times. It has become their number one ranking factor. A good length of time for Youtube videos is considered to be between 2 to 20 minutes. It’s also a good idea to put your videos in a playlist with like content that your viewers can also explore.
Visit NovaLoca’s own Youtube channel here.
