Top 4 Video Optimizing SEO Tips You Must Know
In B2B marketing, videos are becoming exceedingly important. It is an inevitable truth, but companies that have dedicated video marketing strategies certainly generate more leads and earn better revenue than others. Videos help in creating better brand awareness and is indeed a better form of marketing than others.
Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are only a few of the many platforms where you can share your video content. Approximately 90% of the B2B decision-makers employ the use of search for researching on crucial business decisions. In any way, to reap the maximum benefit of video marketing, you need to ensure that your videos are optimized for search.
If you follow the suitable video SEO practices, you can be assured of achieving better video visibility and gaining more organic traffic, and qualified leads for your video content. Before we tell you about the SEO marketing techniques for videos, let us discuss how exactly does Google rank its videos.
How does Google rank videos?
In the video search and general search functions, Google ranks the videos in more or less the similar fashion that it uses for the written content. The most important signals that it uses are – number of backlinks, content quality, and RankBrain. Gracia, an internet market expert for TFTH, says that when she hosts videos on the site, she uses the same strategies for SEO that she uses for the written content or the images.
Though the tactics are mostly similar, they are not identical. So, here, we have come up with a few steps that can help you in improving the search rankings of the videos on the search engine.
Transcribe the videos
When you provide transcription and the videos on the same page, it inevitably brings in a double benefit. It then caters to the different reader preferences and improves the chances of a video appearing in the search engine. Daisy, a digital marketing expert of TrumpLearning, says that she optimizes the video transcriptions and text-based content similarly. Transcriptions are vital because they assure a good user experience as they cater to different learning styles.
Though some people prefer reading, there are also a few who prefer watching videos. A recent study proves that approximately 85% of the business executives opt for reading over watching videos when they have to make a crucial business decision.
Video transcribing can be done in two ways:
- You can either offer a complete word-by-word transcription, or
- You can provide just the highlights
Naturally, the full transcripts offer better engagement opportunities. However, the highlights are ideal if you have long videos. Ultimately, your choice would depend on your target audience. So, you can do some A/B testing to find out which approach works best for your audience.
Optimize the video file metadata
Just like in the text-based SEO, in videos, too, descriptions and titles are essential. Though Google will automatically find something to display if you do not provide this data, but if you optimize the metadata, your chances of driving traffic are more.
In all cases, your descriptions and video titles have to be:
- Compelling to persuade click-throughs
- Relevant to the content
- Include apt keywords, which would match the search of the user.
The titles should be 55 characters or shorter, and the descriptions must be 155 characters or less. In addition to this, you also need to work on the thumbnails. Thumbnails are to video, what your images are to the written content. So, choosing the right thumbnail is quintessential. James, who works as a graphic designer with EduWorldUSA, says that he always recommends thumbnails, which are custom-designed and are compelling enough to attract attention and inspire the interest of the viewer.
Adopt Schema Markup
Though a few users perform searches via the video function of Google, others use the general search bar. So, to ensure that your videos stand out, you should adopt the schema markup. It offers adequate information, which the search engine needs. If you use the schema markup right, the general search results will appear in a more or less similar manner as the video results. The only extra work that you have to do here is to provide schema markup for the description, title, thumbnail, and either content URL or embed for all the videos.
Further, please include the upload date, video length, and width and height dimensions.
Having a video Sitemap is required
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Though Google webmaster will find your video on the site, you can certainly improve your chance of visibility by drafting a video sitemap and then submitting it to the Google Search Console. It is recommended to make a separate video sitemap, but you can add your videos to the existing sitemap too. Digital marketing experts for TAE, suggests that the video sitemap must include the play page URL, video description, video title, and the raw video file URL. All of the information provided in the sitemap must match the information that is present on the site.
In addition to it, you can also include a few optional data pieces, such as rating, duration of the video, live status, category, and view count. Though these are optional, and may or may not be included in the sitemap, they do help Google index the video files.
