Josepf Haslam, SVP Digital Marketing of Jennifer Connelly Public Relations in NYC shares some tips on Video Search Engine Optimization.
Your video is not a Field of Dreams. If you simply build it no one will come. VSEO is important because the Search Engine “spiders” or “bots” are your first audience. Search Engines need to understand your content and index it correctly before it can be found by someone searching. Performing Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) will help you get your videos found.
How to Conduct Keyword Research for Videos
Whatever someone types into a Search Engine becomes a “keyword phrase”. When you hear “keyword” forever more just think search phrase. Your business can easily do keyword research related to your website and industry to identify exactly what people are searching for. We recommend conducting keyword research for any piece of content you have created. A great place to start is with your own web analytics to review what keywords are already coming to your site. Second, take a look at Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool. My tip is to look for what are called long-tail keywords, search phrase with three, four, or more words. Although longer worded search phrases have lower search volume they are both easier to rank for and probably will convert better for you.
Imagine JCPR’s Video Production Company trying to compete for the keyword “video.” One or even two word search phrases are not specific enough. Almost half the time people search they use four or more words. The long-tail search phrase is your friend for Video SEO because you can more easily get traffic back to your site or video with longer tail keywords than with a one or two word phrase. As a PR agency, you should always look to skillfully combine PR and SEO if you want to keep ahead of the competition, at least online.
How to Optimize Video for YouTube Search
- The Title is the single most important element for Search. The maximum effective title length for your video is 66 characters; the reason is that Google will truncate anything over this length in search results. Longer titles do work for search because the spiders will read them, however, they just will not be properly displayed so make sure what you want people to see are in the first 66 characters of your title.
- The description is the second most important element for video search. Also, every video placed on YouTube should have a back-link to a relevant landing page on your website. This link should be displayed in the first two lines of the description. Your text should support your keyword research.
- Tags and Categories are the third most important element for VSEO. Your tags should be based on your keyword research. Pay attention to the suggestions YouTube gives you as well. Avoid stuffing, a practice where you repeat the same words over and over.
As a bonus we’re going to give you three pro tips to implement.
- Pro Tip #1: Yes, your file name makes a difference, name it the same as your title before you upload the video.
- Pro Tip #2: Make sure all content is yours, especially music. YouTube will flag your video if they suspect pirated content. They are especially good at flagging music. Use content that you have rights to, or explore YouTube’s “free to use” music library.
- Pro Tip #3: Consider a video transcript. Video transcripts add text content to your video post on platforms such as YouTube. This text content can help your video be found for long-tail search requests both on YouTube and by the Search Engines.
Intermediate Video Search Optimization Next
JCPR is just getting started! They have many more pro tips and pieces of advice to offer. Please follow the series or comment on the JCPR blog post How to Optimize Video for Search.
This post was first published on JCPR.com