Videos have now become an integral part of SEO efforts for any company – be it a small start-up or a big multinational brand. According to recent research, having videos on your website increases the average time spent by the user substantially contributing to your Google rankings and performance.
Moreover, 59% of users stated that they prefer watching videos instead of textual content, which reflects the shift that is taking place in the digital content sphere. This popularity has made it possible for digital marketing to branch out into the specific field of video marketing.
Here are a few tips that can help you achieve better rankings and digital performance for your videos:
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Keyword Research is Important
Comprehensive keyword research is still pertinent to improving SEO rankings and can be used across multiple platforms and content types. Videos can be a great way to grab users’ attention and are equally important in placing you higher on Google rankings. There are many tools online that can help you find the right keywords to increase the visibility of your content and improve your rankings through SEO.
Primarily, for video marketers, finding the trends on Google and aligning keywords according to these trends can be a great way to ensure better video rankings and visibility. Moreover, it can help you track the volume and competition associated with the keywords that you have chosen so that you can update them, as needed.
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Optimize and Localize Everything
Many marketers set out to create viral videos that take the internet by the storm, but ignore the technical and logical steps necessary to achieve this. An important step in this direction is to integrate SEO every step of the way. Right from keyword research to adding meta tags and related properties on the backend, it is important to optimize each element for maximum reach.
Some of the common elements that you would need to consider for optimization are:
- Video file metadata
- Video transcription
- Implementation of Schema markup
- Keyword Research
Together, these elements can potentially drive traffic to your videos and through them, to your website and social media channels. But to have a more definitive effect, it is important to implement localization as well.
Gone are the days when video marketers could simply create videos and personally promote them to generate interest. Consider implementing employee training software that can help your employee develop additional skills that they need to adapt to the digitized market today.
Local companies and brands, due to their personalized customer service and relationships can often be a tough competition for companies that want to make a mark. Localization of content can be very useful in such situations, leading to better reach and engagement locally, which could then impact your Google rankings.
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Add Relevant Tags
The key to successful video marketing is not just creating impactful videos, but also promoting them smartly. The objective of marketing a video is to ensure that the video reaches the right audience. Adding hashtags and other keywords to your description can ensure that you can achieve this seamlessly.
Firstly, it is important to bust the myth that adding relevant hashtags simply entails finding related terms and adding them as hashtags. In reality, it requires you as a video marketer to understand which trending hashtags are most relevant to your video. Trending hashtags suggest the main trends that people are actively searching for, and integrating them ensures that you can reach them.
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Host the Video in Your Domain
Platforms like YouTube and Vimeo offer a plethora of benefits for companies that are looking to get increased shares and exposure for their videos. This can no doubt, be a great way to attract more viewers and to achieve the goals that you have associated with the video.
However, if you want your videos to have a long-term impact on your ranking and digital performance, consider hosting them on your website or domain. Remember: If you are just starting out, using platforms like YouTube would be more effective in generating traffic for your website and for building links. Hosting videos on your websites or domains can be useful once you are already getting traffic to your website.
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Repurpose Your Videos
If you have created an informative video that you know your users will love and be engaged with, you have only taken the first step towards successful video marketing. The next steps involve ensuring that a large number of people have access to your videos. It is important to repurpose your videos effectively to generate maximum impact through them.
Repurposing your videos might seem like a lot of work, but there are simple ways to do so. Promoting clips from your video on social media and creating images and infographics from the information that you have collated for the video, could be a great starting point. Moreover, videos can easily be converted into small blogs and shorter videos that can be promoted across multiple platforms, for building links. Such steps can lead to better rankings and performance for your videos.
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Utilize Social Media
Since Google rankings depend largely on the traffic and authenticity of your links, social media channels can be a great way to leverage your videos. YouTube has rapidly become one of the preferred search engines after Google, due to the large number of videos uploaded on it every day.
With a sharp increase in the number of people who use their mobile phones to view content, it has become important for brands to leverage social media applications now than ever before. If you have created a video that you know people will love, make sure you reach out to them through unique posts on social media channels.
The additional benefit you can get is that your viewers can give you constructive feedback and criticism through social channels which you can use to improve your videos.
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Create Unique Videos to Engage
Let’s be real: you can make videos all you want, but the real winners would be the videos that can bring more traffic as well as increase engagement. Your goals behind a video can be varied, but the actual impact that you can achieve is driven solely by the uniqueness and creativity of your video. A hundred brands can talk about the same thing in different ways, but it takes a unicorn to add that extra factor that attracts people to click on their video.
Take the popular example of Dollar Shaving Company, an American men’s grooming brand that released a video to create brand awareness during their launch. The video was so unique that it went viral, resulting in multiple advantages such as increased backlinks, traffic, and most importantly, high levels of engagement.
Takeaways:
Video SEO is an evolving field, where every day, new ways of making videos work for your brand are developed. By integrating elements that work for your brand, you can ensure that your video reaches the maximum number of people, and more importantly, generates the maximum impact. Videos can potentially generate increased traffic, and engagement which can lead to improved rankings for your company.
