If you’re in the digital marketing industry, you probably know what SEO is. But SEO for videos? That’s a whole other ball game!
Optimising videos for the search engine isn’t just about keywords. Your thumbnail selection, video hosting platform, and captions also play a significant role. Video agencies with expertise in social media video services typically also know how video SEO works, and how to make them work together to get more views and traffic to your website.
Want to know how videos are optimised for search? Here are some ways video marketers do it:
Choose your thumbnail wisely
The ‘display picture’ for your video, a thumbnail is one of the first things people see before they decide whether to click on your video. As you can imagine, this needs to be attractive enough so that people will be more inclined to click.
Relevant, informative, and professional – these are some things you should definitely aim for. For example, if your video is an interview with a distinguished person, it would be good to feature a flattering frame of the interviewee. As a general guide, a good-looking thumbnail should be able to stand alone as a picture, rather than look like a
Consider the hosting platform
Youtube may be the first video-hosting site you think of for posting your videos, but it isn’t the only option. Sites like Youtube and Vimeo are great for sharing videos for general brand awareness, but might not be so great for driving traffic to your website, due to the distractions and competition on the streaming sites itself.
There are alternative hosting platforms that allow you to add in SEO metadata for your video, increasing your video’s chances of being indexed. Another option to explore is using paid video ads instead, as this gives you the avenue to add a link that leads directly to your appointed landing page.
Include a video transcript
Video transcripts and captions (aka soft subtitles) are useful in many ways. Of course, they are essential for deaf audiences, but on Facebook where many watch videos while on mute, captions become helpful for everyone. But besides the actual viewing experience, did you know that video transcripts can also boost your video’s SEO?
As we know, search engines depend on text to figure out what your site is about. When you have a video transcript for your video, it can tell the search bots what your video is about. This makes it easier for search engines to rank your page with the video for relevant queries.
Make your title and description interesting
This is what most SEO marketers will be familiar with. Title and descriptions are always super important for search, and the same goes for videos. You’ll want to make sure the relevant keywords are in your title and description, so that people who are searching can find your video.
Don’t get lazy on the keyword research, hashtags on social media platforms can be useful to get found, but don’t cram keywords, either. After drafting a few titles and descriptions, take a step back and think in the shoes of a user. Will you click on it? Is it interesting? Does it sound credible?
Build backlinks through social media shares
As SEO marketers will know, having a high number of backlinks from reputable sites are a proven way to boost a website’s search ranking. It’s not too difficult either, making a great waste to your efforts to leave this step out. The easiest place to start is through social media shares.
Search engine bots prioritise crawling and indexing sites linked on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. So, when you make it a point to share your newly released videos on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you are directly giving your brand’s site a huge boost to be more easily found on the search engines. Of course, social media has its own audience as well, making this a definite win-win process for you!
Conclusion
Effective video marketing is not just about producing brilliant videos; a great internet marketing strategy is also needed to bring the video to the right audiences! So, if you want to create videos that will attract the eyeballs your brand deserves, don’t underestimate the help you can get from a professional video production agency in Singapore.
At Gram, we are not just experts in video production, but also well-versed in optimising videos to get a wider reach. Let us help your brand create effective videos and draw in the views that you want!
