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Ten Tips for Quality Video SEO Results
by Enzo F. Cesario
More Search Engine Optimization Articles
Published on this site: February 9th, 2010 - See
more articles from this month
Within one year of its launch, YouTube became the fourth most
popular website in the world, and is currently a multi-million
dollar enterprise. This fact alone should explain the utter
relevance and power of video content to the modern Web.
Widespread broadband internet access, increasingly capable video
recording hardware and editing software, and high-capacity data
storage have conspired to convert the web from predominantly
text-based to an increasingly audio-visual phenomenon.
Since people seem to want video content, the big search engines
are incorporating video links into their organic results - and as
with any content, there are ways to optimize your search engine
performance.
Ten Tips for Quality Video SEO Results:
- Make sure the video is worth the effort to find it.
Content must be relevant, and it must have an acceptable standard
of quality. Potential visitors to any site probably have a great
many alternatives they can turn to for any particular interest.
Before worrying about other optimization factors, make sure the
videos you're promoting are the very best quality you can
produce.
- Integrate the video.
In strong SEO practices, all content is tied to other content on
the site, and nothing stands alone. Make sure the videos include
links back to other portions of the site to increase traffic and
sympathetic search results. For example, link back product
demonstrations to the products' description page.
- Optimize keywords.
Nearly all good SEO practice comes back to keyword optimization.
Search the statistics, find out what keywords are most relevant
to the videos you're producing, and use them. Build catchy
titles around them, and incorporate them into the video
descriptions and associated text. As in tip 2, make sure they
integrate with other keywords important to your site as a whole.
- Seek wide coverage.
The end goal of SEO techniques is the generation of web traffic.
The chances of a user going to any particular website are fairly
slim, so get your content out there. Post to YouTube, Vimeo, and
Google Video, but also look into the specialty markets that offer
specific types of video. Be creative, and get your content in
front of as many people as possible.
- Omit needless words.
A trick right out of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style,
this advice is as true for video content as it is for text. Keep
the video brief and punchy, down to exactly what you need to
convey your message. People prefer videos of about five minutes'
length, as a rule of thumb.
- Brand yourself.
Video content is an excellent chance to associate your content
with your site's brand. Incorporate your organization's logo
into the video (generally in the introduction and/or conclusion),
and be sure to link back to your site. However, keep these
mentions discrete and logical. Over-stressing the name often
leads to eye rolling and clicking to another site. Let the
video's strengths carry the product name, instead of simply
repeating it.
- Think of the user.
People are not robots, who will automatically respond positively
just because they saw a video. Respect their intelligence and the
time they're taking to view the content you've provided. Allow
them to comment on or at least rate the video, so they feel a
sense of contribution to the brand. Consider the option of
providing embedding code so they can post the video to their own
sites, and provide a contact point so they can leave commentary
(moderated for politeness, of course).
- Use RSS.
RSS is a standardized syndication format that allows easy
publication for frequently updated materials. People set up RSS
feeds to their preferred content sources, be they comics, blogs,
or video feeds. If you submit your content to RSS and users see
it, they're more likely to add you to their feed and therefore
return to your videos in the future.
- Remember the Code.
Search engines still operate largely on indexes of hard copy
material. Video hasn't replaced text content so much as grown
into a role alongside it. Descriptions and transcripts of your
video content add another point of interest for search engines
along with meta tags and titles, so don't neglect good
HTML-sensitive writing.
- Choose an appropriate format.
If your content is generated toward a predominantly Mac-friendly
audience, you will win more viewers by settling on Apple's .mov
format rather than Windows' .avi. Do some research into your
target audience and see what formats are most preferred, and
stick to that format. In the past there may have been some merit
to offering alternative formats, but with widely available
broadband access, people can acquire multiple players with
relative ease.
As with text SEO practices, video SEO is not about magic bullets
or painting by the numbers. It must be an organic, considered
practice that takes many factors into account. All content must
be tied intrinsically to the entire business, with video and text
content supporting each other in an integrated effort to promote
the whole. Adding Video will not save a site from shoddy
products, but as part of a comprehensive plan of good practices,
it is one more tool in the successful business' toolbox.
Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat.
Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art
internet distribution and optimization to build links and
drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to
http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/.
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