This article was first published on November 19th, 2020, and was last updated August 2022.
By now, you are probably tired of hearing about the wonderful things about video marketing and its power of attracting and converting leads. So, we don’t blame you for wanting to create your own corporate video and showing it to everyone.
But, did you know that producing a video is only the first step of a successful video marketing strategy?
Once you complete a piece, you need to distribute it effectively. After all, your video’s marketing potential can only be unlocked if people can find it!
You see, your audience isn’t willing to go the extra mile to hunt for your commercial or explainer video. They’ll probably focus on the first-page results or dedicated landing pages and ignore the rest. So, to get the most out of your video, you need to have an effective SEO strategy that guarantees people will see it.
And that’s why we are here today! To show you some SEO tips that will allow you to land your video at the top of the SERP. Let’s dive in!
1) Choose the Right Hosting Platform
This is probably the most basic yet crucial step to boost your video’s visibility: defining where to put it.
Sure, YouTube is a natural choice. When talking about SEO and videos, we simply can’t leave out the second largest search engine in the world, especially if it’s solely dedicated to video content.
But there is another powerful reason for hosting your video and learning how to get more visibility on YouTube.
I’m talking about the influence this platform has on Google’s SERP. Since this Silicon Valley giant owns YouTube, it’s only logical that it has a soft spot for its own platform when ranking videos in its SERP.
But apart from YouTube, there’s a whole range of video hosting platforms that can display your video. Most of them are aimed at a particular niche. Some will match your audience’s interests more than others. For instance, Vimeo can be an ideal choice if your audience is filled with movie buffs. While Behive is better if they are into design.
Social video platforms like IGTV are also a viable alternative to host your video, mainly if your audience is composed of youngsters.
2) Optimize Your Video’s Title & Description
Optimizing your video’s title and description is like killing two SEO birds with one stone.
On one side, engaging titles and descriptions drive more organic clicks and views to your video. That enhances your video’s reputation in the eyes of search engines’ algorithms, making you rank higher in the SERPs.
On the other side, titles and descriptions are a goldmine of keywords opportunities. Here you can include relevant keywords to make your video easily found by people (and search engine crawlers) looking for those terms.
To make the most out of this strategy, try to use your main keyword at the very beginning of your title, and include other relevant keywords in the video’s description.
That’s easier said than done. Your keywords are bound to be similar to each other, and you want your title and description to sound like natural texts, not robotic lists. Pay special attention to this including your keywords organically, without getting carried away.
3) Make an Awesome Thumbnail
Creating an attractive thumbnail for your video can translate into a higher click-through rate, and therefore, into a better position in the SERPs.
So, to take full advantage of this tiny but mighty tool, always go with a custom thumbnail.
The freeze-frame images that YouTube and other video hosting platforms offer often fail to tantalize viewers. Custom thumbnails, on the other hand, allow you to add all sorts of helpful elements to a picture, such as:
- Intriguing or Descriptive Text. Even better if it’s in a big, noticeable font.
- Expressive Faces, which work like a charm for attracting viewers.
- Bright Colors, which help make your thumbnail more noticeable.
- Your Brand’s Logo and/or Color Palette. For viewers to recognize your content more easily.
By picking the right picture and including some of these elements in it, you can have a thumbnail capable of calling viewers’ attention.
4) Don’t Forget to Add A Transcript
Search engine crawlers have a lot to envy Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and the bunch. You see, search engine bots are still unable to discern audio content, least of all audiovisual content. As a result, the keywords you mention on your explainer video won’t account for your SEO efforts… unless you add a transcript.
A transcript is a text file that contains your whole video’s dialogues – basically what video captions are made from.
The process of putting your video into words can be done manually or by an automated software program. The latter method is usually much faster, but it’s also more prone to errors, especially when the video’s protagonists have a thick accent. So, it’s always useful to have a person writing or at least proofreading the transcript.
5) Display Your Video on a Dedicated Landing Page
Okay, we’ve talked about displaying your video in the right hosting platform, but have you ever considered creating a landing page exclusively for your video? That’s a tactic that you can’t go wrong with.
For starters, video help increase the visit times on your website, as people would rather stay on your site watching a video than reading a text. For that same reason, video tends to reduce your bounce rate.
Moreover, Google algorithm favors individual pages with videos, making them rank higher on the results page.
Need yet another reason for embedding your video in a landing page? Well, it’s not related to SEO, but here you have it: videos work better than text and images at converting leads. What else can you ask for?
6) Prioritize Videos for Embedding
We suggested creating a page exclusively for your video because Google crawlers index only one video per page. Consequently, if your page has more than one video, only the first one will be registered by the search engine bots.
If you stop to think about it, it’s a bit similar to what happens with your visitors. They are unlikely to start scrolling down and down looking for a hidden video on your website – they’ll just go for the video that’s most accessible to them!
With that in mind, it’s recommended that you prioritize your video content. We recommend you to stick to a single video per page but, even if you resist to follow our advice (shame on you!), remember to feature your most important video first. After all, that’ll be the one that steals the visitors and crawlers’ attention.
7) Shine a Spotlight on Your Video
Your video should be without doubt the central piece on your page, as visitors should be able to find your video as soon as your page loads. That entails uncluttering its surroundings and making the piece noticeable at first sight.
Also, it won’t hurt to tweak your landing page aesthetic to match your content. It’s better if both the page and the video send the same cohesive message about your brand and its products or services.
Summing up, your landing page should be entirely designed around your video. As simple as that.
8) Embed Your Video in a Single Page
It’s okay to upload your piece to a video hosting platform and to your landing page, but going beyond that can be a wrong move.
You might think that embedding your video in various pages will allow you to tackle different keywords, but it can actually undermine your SEO efforts.
You see, essentially, making more pages dedicated to the same video will create more competition in the SERPs for your first video landing page. And what’s ironic is that you’d be competing with yourself!
That sort of tactic can be detrimental to your website’s traffic and SEO so, try to concentrate your efforts on a single page.
9) Enhance Your SEO Strategy with Quality Content
This is probably the most essential piece of advice you’ve learned today: when it comes to video SEO, quality content is your best ally.
The reason is simple: it brings about specific elements that can impact significantly on your SEO strategy, such as:
- More views.
- Increased shares.
- More backlinks to your site.
Yes. People are more likely to watch, share, and link relevant quality content. And that directly benefits your SEO!
So, even before producing your video and mapping out your SEO, keep in mind that creating a high-quality piece will be one of the best decisions you can take to make your video rank high.
Parting Words
Distributing your video in the right way is as important as producing a great audiovisual piece. And by “in the right way,” we mean “minding your video’s SEO.”
Since your potential customers can only find your video if it’s ranked high enough, you must optimize your SEO strategy to make your video as visible as possible. The tips that you’ve learned today will be of great help in that regard, but applying them should not be a one-time thing.
The internet is constantly changing, as do people’s interests and searched terms. You don’t want your video to be left behind. Tweak your SEO strategy from time to time to adapt to changes.
Now you know how to go about your SEO tactic. We hope to see your video at the top of the SERPs anytime soon!
