Did you know that digital video views now exceed 230 million every year? This number is only expected to increase steadily. Not surprisingly, the biggest slice of the pie goes to Google’s video streaming site YouTube, which receives upwards of 126 million unique views annually.
With so many people watching videos online, it’s more important than ever to create videos that inform your target market of your products and services while engaging and entertaining them.
But creating a video is one thing, and making sure that people see it is another.How do you optimize your video so that it is seen by people who matter to your brand?
This is where video SEO—also known as YouTube Marketing or vSEO—comes in.
Understanding Video SEO
Video SEO involves two things: building video content that attracts traffic and creating video metadata that caters to what people search for.
If all that sounds too technical, don’t worry.We’ve broken it down into the following practical tips:
- Create and Submit a Sitemap for Your Video.
A video sitemap essentially helps Google find any video content on your website.It’s possible to build a site map exclusively for your video, but you can also embed your video sitemap within your website’s existing sitemap.Google provides detailed guidelines along with examples to help you start.
- Develop a Schema Markup.
While schema markup sounds a bit technical, it’s really just structured data—a type of code that makes it easy for Google and other search engines to crawl, make sense of, and accurately display the contents of your website—including your videos.
Because Google bots can’t “watch” your videos, they rely on schema markups to understand its meaning.Your schema markup should include a clear description, information on the duration of video, and a thumbnail, among other things.
- Use a Great Thumbnail.
Here’s the deal: weak thumbnails don’t get clicked.You need engaging, high-quality ones if you want people to watch your videos.You also have to make sure that your thumbnails are accessible to Google and other search engines, with no robots.txt blocking them. If they are not accessible, then your videos might not appear in the featured videos section.
It’s also important to optimize your thumbnails for SEO.Use a descriptive text in a large enough font that’s easy to read, with good contrast.Watch that aspect ratio; double check if it’s in line with the 16:9 format prescribed by Google so that it displays properly.
- Create Videos on Topics That People Search For.
This is not as simple as thinking of a random topic, using your phone to shoot a video about it, and hoping for the best.Coming up with high-traffic topics takes a bit of research.They have to be about things that people (1) actually search for on Google and have (2) video intent. This means that people prefer to watch a video about that topic instead of reading about it.
You can use Google’s Search Console for ideas.
Getting Help fromthe Pros
YouTube Marketing, video SEO, or vSEO is really easy if you know (1) how to create submit a video sitemap and structured data to help Google find in index your videos, (2) how to create engaging thumbnails that appeal to your audience, and (3) how to find topics that are not only relevant to your business but also highly searched and have video intent.
But it can quickly become complicated especially if you don’t have a strong background in search engine optimization.
Do you have questions about YouTube Marketing, video SEO, or vSEO?Do you need assistance in increasing the number of people who view and interact with your videos?Contact SEOValley today. We can help!
