Top 10 Video Search Optimization Tips and Tactics
People usually love video, millions of Americans consume videos online and same is the case world over. A consumer is most likely to keep in mind and refer to a video in comparison to a print advertisement. These days video making is very economical as compared to the cost of a traditional commercial. Broadband is getting enormous popularity worldwide. Now people can watch videos without long download times or quality issues. Present generation considers video to be a reliable source of news and information. Online video for them is second to nature. Here are a few tips/hints for optimizing your video:
1) All SEO specialists know that the search engines are built to index and rank text. Being that it is more difficult for the search engines to understand the content within a video (though they are working on it), it is a good idea to include as much text surrounding the video itself if possible. One excellent way to do this is to include a text transcript of your video alongside your video with keyword rich title and descriptions.
2) Keep in mind that when users search for videos on search engines, often time they use the word “video” in their search. For example, “car racing video.” Therefore, in addition to the keywords that you are targeting, also be sure to include the word “video” or “videos” in your description, text, title, meta data, etc…
3) Search engine crawlers rely a lot on the link texts to figure out what the video is all about as they are not capable to figure out the contents of the video otherwise. Therefore it is advisable to get as many back links as possible for your video.
4) It is advisable to create a separate sitemap just for your videos in your site and try to keep your video files in one directory this would help the web crawlers to locate your video files speedily and effortlessly.
5) It is very difficult for the web crawlers of any search engine to crawl into the video contents inside flash players so they usually prefer to stay away from such files. It is therefore advisable not to use such kind of file formats which discourages the web crawlers.
6) Keep a keyword friendly URL structure that uses a few of your main keywords in the url string. For example – website.com/videos/car-racing-video/ is much better than website.com/videos/?videoID=123kjh
7) The first thing that users see when browsing for or searching for videos is the video thumbnail. Research shows that the thumbnail you choose for your video can really effect the number of viewers that watch the video itself. Try to experiment with the thumbnails that you choose to see which ones create more interest and get seen more often by viewers.
When hosting videos on your own site, keep your videos one per page and put all the pages with videos into one directory. This combined with a video sitemap will help search engines find and index all of your important videos.
Besides the tips mentioned above for Video SEO, there are a few other guidelines to keep in mind:
9) Keyword research, as with search engine optimization for other online content, is crucial for targeting the audience you desire most effectively. Use keyword research tools available in order to identify those words that most often are searched for when searching for related content online.
10) Allow users to submit comments and feedback on your videos. Studies show that viewers who offer feedback are those most likely to convert and take the desired action that you are trying to solicit, whether it be an email, website visit, or purchase.
If you want to learn even more about how to optimize online video content, we suggest that you visit ReelSEO. They are is focused on offering expert tips, tutorials, and advice onOptimizing Videos for Search Engines. For a list of articles and resources about VSEO, visit ReelSEO.com
