Video SEO

Search Engine Optimisation for Video

YouTube could be deemed as 'the second search engine'. For many video is a lot more engaging way of digesting content than reading paragraphs of text with the odd image. So the fact there is a demand for this type of content it is crucial for businesses to integrate video within their content marketing strategy.

what is Video SEO (vSEO)?

Video SEO (vSEO) can be defined as "the process of improving the indelibility, ranking and visibility of a video in video search engines such as YouTube or search engines in general by using optimisation strategies."

Top 5 Tips from a Specialist Video SEO Consultant London

• Choose your Video Hosting Platform Wisely (YouTube, Vimeo, Self-Hosted, Wistia)
  • There are quite a few considerations when it comes to where you should host your videos. Self-hosting tends to be the one SEOs would discourage because it can take up a lot of storage space and bandwidth and potentially slow your site down which isn't good for user experience and not surprisingly won't help your SEO effectiveness and performance. Building up a solid YouTube channel is encouraged as an off-site activity and videos that rank well within YouTube will help awareness of your brand and help build a community of loyal contents who want to see your content. However, the downside is you run the risk of users bypassing and not visiting your website. If your SEO Strategy is focused on driving traffic to your site to encourage a conversion, then investigating alternative video hosting platforms that cater for this type of strategy is worth doing. For example, Wistia automatically inserts SEO metadata (JSON-LD, which is the light weight and the fastest) to increase the likelihood of being indexed but you may need to weigh up the cost of using a service this like this.
• Add a Video Transcript
  • Something like 85% of videos watched on YouTube are not watched with sound so it's important to add a video transcript so your messages are not lost. When you do a blog article on your website and put a lot of effort into the video it's worth reaping the full benefit of the video by having the text transcript on the post as well. This will create a lot of context for the search engine to understand what the video is about and ensure the web page itself is not thin on content.
• Use Custom Thumbnail Images
  • Your YouTube channel will need to be verified to add a custom thumbnail and this process is explained in this tutorial video. A Custom Thumbnail may make the difference between a user clicking into your video versus them scrolling past your video.
• Importance of your Video Title and Video Description
  • You may be excited to upload your video and just add a quick title then get to sharing but a bit of thought and consideration on your Title can go a long way. The title should be clear and entice the user into clicking into your video. The description allows you to create even more context about what the video is about and if able to include a link to the full article / website page do this too.
• Video Focus and Video Placement
  • Typically, search engine crawlers usually stop crawling for videos after that first video. Placing a video above the fold with a page focussed on the video and the content contained within the video can increase the chances of the video being ranked. If a video is placed way below the fold where the user has to scroll and scroll (particularly on a mobile) this can decrease the chances of the video being played and in turn optimised. Even multiple videos on a page can confused the certain or take away from the importance of the key video.