Last Updated on Oktober 18, 2023
From on-page content to social media, video content on the internet is booming; it’s the format everybody wants. One of the biggest success factors of video marketing lies in the interactivity and the findability of videos through search engines – especially (Google-owned) YouTube videos.
- Using Video Content to Up Your SEO Game
- How Does SEO Work for Videos?
- How Video Content Marketing Improves Your SEO
- How You Optimise a Video for Search Engines
- Video Search Engine Optimization Tips
- Video SEO Tip #1 the title of your video
- Video SEO Tip #2 the description of your video
- Video SEO Tip #3 keywords relevant to your video
- Video SEO Tip #4 video transcription and subtitles
- Video SEO Tip #5 the thumbnail of your video
- Video SEO Tip #6 the file name of your video
- Video SEO Tip #7 your website!
- Your YouTube SEO Checklist
Why Videos are an Important Part of Your Content Marketing
According to a 2021 survey of American consumers, 70% of respondents said they did not subscribe to cable or satellite TV. Why? Because they had the possibility to access video content they wanted to watch online. (Statista) Not just series or movies either. How-To and entertainment videos are extremely popular.
On Social Media, the younger (even than us) generation in particular has shown on TikTok that videos of all kinds can no longer be missing from any online marketing strategy. So, the question is: Got Video?
“Video is the number one content format. That’s clear. What cat videos began, and the content generation craze helped solidify, the COVID 19 lockdown crowned. Videos are our favored form of content. The second most visited website is YouTube, with 13.34 billion monthly visits. What’s on YouTube? Videos.”
Hot Tip: Are you looking to kick your online shop up a notch with great product images? Here are some great tips for optimising your product images so they don’t slow down your website.
Using Video Content to Up Your SEO Game
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and describes techniques and strategies to increase the positioning of a website for certain search terms (keywords) in a search engine such as Google.
Search Engine Optimization takes a website built by people and makes it easily consumable for search engines. If you offer the solution to someone’s problem, but they haven’t heard of you, SEO gets your name in front of them.
Are you just starting out in SEO? There are a lot of books available on Amazon to help you. Here is my SEO book for beginners. It’s available in German too.
SEO Has Three Parts
- On-Page SEO: having to do with the pages, posts, and media on your website
- Off-Page SEO: having to do with your social media, reviews, and backlinks to your site
- And Technical SEO: having to do with your site’s performance (page speed, loading time etc.)
As you can see, your videos connect all three parts of search engine optimization. Hosting your videos on your website gives you the added advantage of not only owning your video content; your website and video content can be optimized for search engines too.
“Search engines are sophisticated enough to understand the context of your video and use that in determining if it’s relevant to searchers’ intent.“
Smart Bug Media
How Does SEO Work for Videos?
Entertaining and informative videos score points with target groups of (almost) all ages. But video content not only offers your target groups interesting content and helps you reach customers. Videos also have a significant impact on your ranking in search engine results lists (SERPs).
But let’s be clear: video SEO and YouTube SEO are “two different episodes”. Important is that your videos are available not only on social media channels (like YouTube, TikTok and co.) but on your own website too. Do both, and boost your website and your video SEO in one punch!
Video SEO includes the optimization of videos embedded on your website for search engines like Google, Bing and co.
YouTube SEO includes the specific optimization of YouTube videos for YouTube search.
Whether on YouTube or other social media platforms, or oon your website, Google and other search engines need to find your videos. This post will give you some tips to help you help them!
“To take full advantage of your video’s SEO potential, you should post it on your own website because people will then link to your domain, which will benefit your website’s overall SEO.”
Neil Patel
How Video Content Marketing Improves Your SEO
Whether you’re creating video tutorials, informative insights, or simply entertaining video posts: As long as your video content is high-quality and meets the needs of your target audience, you’ll score points with users.
You can cleverly use the click-through rate on videos for your SEO ranking if you link video portals like YouTube to your site. Videos affect the ranking of your website in the Google SERPs in various ways because with the integration of one or more videos, certain KPIs of SEO performance can be achieved better than without a video.
Videos Increase Your Website Traffic
A website that integrates videos into its content strategy usually records significantly more traffic than websites that rely solely on text and images. Video content has been shown to increase website traffic by up to 300 percent compared to other content marketing channels.
Videos Increase Your Visitor’s Time on Your Website
Internet users stay longer on sites that embed a video (or several). A Forbes study found that the average Internet user spends 88 percent longer on a site with videos than on comparable sites without video integration.
Since search engines like Google include user dwell time as a ranking factor – as well as several other factors in Google’s Core Web Vitals – this point increases ranking in Google’s search results list.
Videos Offer Backlink Potential
Link-building is also among the key ranking factors in SEO. Qualitative backlinks have a positive effect on the listing in Google search results.
What’s a backlink? A backlink is any link to your content. It’s important to get links from relevant websites, social media, even internal links, connected to your website. That increases your website’s relevance, traffic, and authority.
A video upsells your text-based content in a vivid way while linking to your video on YouTube, for example, at the same time. If you write a text about a product, you can link to the address of the video page within it.
Search engines like Google register the increase in links and rank the website higher in terms of relevance. However, these should always be high-quality backlinks that fit the topic covered on your site or in your text.
Videos Increase Social Engagement
If you scroll on social media platforms, you will quickly notice that one video follows another. According to the Brightcove video platform statistics, short videos on social networks gain 1200% more reposts than posts with text and pictures.
Videos increase your reach and videos on social media increase engagement. They are shared, commented on, and liked – all of which score points in SEO.
“Your fans, consumers, and peers want to watch videos so it isn’t a stretch to believe your customers also want to watch video-based content. Adding video to your website’s blog is only going to increase your time on site. Who doesn’t love that? SEO for the win!”
How You Optimise a Video for Search Engines
To „SEO“ your website’s videos, you should not only optimize the video itself. A search engine-friendly website environment for your video content is required here as well as on YouTube.
In order to present a video successfully and to provide Google with contextual content, the environment in which the video is located is also of great relevance.
Video Search Engine Optimization Tips
Optimisation won’t do any good if users are attracted to your videos and click on them, but then don’t find the expected content – or poor video quality.
The first few seconds are crucial. Be sure to pay attention to these two aspects first and foremost before optimizing your channel and videos any further.
Video SEO Tip #1 the title of your video
The Video Title is the most important ranking factor and helps both the search engine and users to understand the content of your videos. This is what we see in the SERPs!
Tip: An ideal title consists of 60-70 characters to avoid being cut off. Put the main keyword as far to the front as possible. Your brand should be at the end, if at all.
- Describe the video content as accurately as possible.
- Arouse curiosity in the user, but only create expectations that your video fulfills.
- Use a unique title for each video; for a video series, including the title at the end.
Video SEO Tip #2 the description of your video
The Video Description, you can provide users and search engines with additional information about the video content to a maximum of 5,000 characters.
Tip: The description should be at least 200 characters long. Summarize the content of your video precisely, if necessary use a table of contents with jump tags to the appropriate place in the video.
- „Above the fold“ has space for 100-120 characters. This area is displayed in Google SERPs..
- Questions that are answered in the video should also appear in the description.
- Add a call-to-action that encourages users engagement.
Video SEO Tip #3 keywords relevant to your video
The Video Keyword Tags on YouTube help search engines understand the content of your video. They are not displayed publicly but can be read in the source code.
Tip: Choose about 5 tags per video.
- Be sure to use the main keywords as well as relevant secondary keywords.
- Brand tags can also be included.
- Create default tags that are relevant to your channel.
Video SEO Tip #4 video transcription and subtitles
Transcription and Subtitles are important not only for hearing imparied, but also for search engines to better evaluate the content of your video.
Tip: YouTube can create subtitles automatically. However, you write the transcript manually for better optimisation.
- Mention the main keywords and CTA in the video so that it also appears in the transcription.
- Is English your only target group? Add a translation in Spanish, German, Italian, French …
Video SEO Tip #5 the thumbnail of your video
The Video Thumbnail is the preview image in video search results and the first visual impression YouTube users have of your video. It significantly influences the click-through rate of your video.
Tip: Customize the thumbnail in the Creator Studio on YouTube.
- Use an image in a high-resolution format: 16:9 format.
- Use an appealing image that arouses curiosity but not false expectations.
- Create a custom thumbnail for each of your videos.
Video SEO Tip #6 the file name of your video
The Video File Name of your video also helps the algorithm to better classify the content.
Tip: Formulate the file name of your video file as precisely as possible.
- Make sure that it contains the most important keyword.
- Separate words with a hyphen. Why? Google reads hyphenated words as separate words. If you use underscores to connect words, Google reads the connected words as one word!
Video SEO Tip #7 your website!
This is probably one of the most important aspects of your video marketing. Your website connects your social media, your video, and your content marketing.
Include an embedded video in your blog posts, in your product pages, or in your How-To or FAQ pages. This not only helps increase the time people spend on your website, but it bolsters whatever written content you have with video content. It’s a win-win combination!
“Video marketing improves SEO and boosts conversions and sales. 31% of marketers add video to improve SEO. Websites see a search engine boost when they add video because it increases page quality and the time visitors spend on the page.”
Hubspot
Your YouTube SEO Checklist
- + Rename your video file after a specific keyword.
- + Include your keyword naturally in the video title.
- + Optimize your video description.
- + Tag your video with popular keywords that relate to your topic.
- + Categorize your video.
- + Upload a custom thumbnail image for your video’s result link.
- + Create a transcript, add it to the video, and create content on your website about it.
- + Add cards and end screens to increase viewership of your YouTube channel.
- + Add hashtags to increase reach.
- + Create a playlist about the general theme of your video.
- + Leave a pinned comment on your own video.
People Love Videos – and so Does Your SEO
Creating a video is a great way to connect with people – especially if you would like to teach or help them solve a problem. They are also more entertaining than a book or a PDF filled with check lists. My YouTube channel features How-To videos on a variety of topics that can help you with your online marketing.
Don’t worry – there are a lot of lighter videos there too! There are even a few about food and wine.
Videos are easy to create, and give you a different perspective on your content. They can help you connect with your audience in a way that written content can’t, by including your voice, your face, and your body language. Video turns your written content into a living, breathing, spokesperson for your brand.
With thanks for the image to https://unsplash.com/de/@mattykwong1