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In today’s world, content entrepreneurs no longer rely heavily on plain, bulky text copies and images for their advertisement content. Audiences demand something that provides more information in less time. That’s where video comes in.
Product descriptions aren’t really that exciting. Product images never tell the whole story. But videos give audiences more in-depth explanations and reviews of a product and a business. Plus, videos are easy to digest and retain for audiences of all ages.
The thing is, videos can be so much more than improving your audience experience. They also help you rank better in the search results, making it much easier for you to establish credibility, improve your online reputation management and attract more and more audiences.
But, just like any other content, you need to optimize them first.
We’ll break down the role of video SEO for content entrepreneurship strategies and provide you with actionable, handy tips to optimize your videos for a higher site ranking.
How Do Well-Optimized Videos Help Content Entrepreneurs?
The answer is quite obvious: to rank better on search engines so that more people will find you. This can spruce up your overall advertising strategies and practices in any industries, including retail industry.
It can be so much more than that.
Improved user experience
Optimized videos can help improve the user experience on your website. Videos that load quickly, are of high quality, and are optimized for different devices can help keep your visitors engaged and on your site for longer.
Increased conversions
Videos can be an effective tool for boosting conversions on your website or social media. By optimizing your videos with clear calls to action, product demonstrations, and customer reviews, you can encourage more visitors to make a purchase.
Better engagement
Videos can be more engaging than static images or text-based content. Well-optimized videos often include compelling visuals and storytelling. In this case, you can captivate your target audience, build a stronger connection with them and build a better employee engagement.
Social media sharing
Optimized videos can be easily shared on social media, helping you increase your follower growth and drive more traffic to your website.
How to Optimize Videos for Search Engines?
Not all videos are created the same. Only well-optimized ones will bring you all the benefits above. Here are some tips on how to optimize videos for content entrepreneurship:
#1. Do a Keyword Research
YouTube is the go-to channel for most content entrepreneurs to host their videos before they embed them into a website.
This is where you’ll want to make sure you include relevant keywords in your video title and tags. Just like the basic, regular SEO for articles.
Identify the most relevant and popular keywords that audiences might use to find social media videos about products like yours, and then include those keywords in your video title, tags, description, and transcripts.
A good keyword means that:
- It has low competition
- It is relevant to your product
- It has a high search volume
Or, you can go for long-tail keywords, which are more specific and have less competition.
You can use keyword research tools like Google AdWords Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, and MozKeyword Explorer to find the right keywords for your videos.
Here’s an example from Bliss. They make sure to include the keyword ‘eye cream’ for one of their product videos to make sure that the video is more informative for their audiences as well as more noticeable for search engines.
#2. Optimize Your Video Title and Description
Make sure your video title and description are clear, and concise and include relevant keywords. Your title should be attention-grabbing and make people want to click on it. And your description should further sell the video content, highlighting what viewers can expect to learn from watching it.
After all, videos aren’t all about the visual. You need some context to complement the visuals. Therefore titles and descriptions are key in optimizing your video.
#3. Create Transcripts for Your Videos
Adding transcripts of your videos helps YouTube (and other search engines) index your video content and makes it easier for audiences to find your videos. It also allows people who are deaf or hard of hearing about consuming your content still.
To create transcripts of your videos, you can either type out the transcript yourself or use a tool like Otter.ai, which is an AI-powered tool that transcribes audio and video files.
#4. Create Custom Thumbnails
Your video’s thumbnail is the first thing that appears in search results, so make sure it’s attractive and accurately represents your video content.
You can use free online tools like Canva to create custom thumbnails for your videos. Simply choose a template, upload your logo and product images, and add some text to describe what users will see in your video.
Or, you can just take a screenshot of relevant footage in the video and set the photo as the thumbnail, just like Good Dye Young did here.
#5. Utilize Video Sitemaps
We get more technical here. If you have a website developer, utilizing video sitemaps can be a powerful way to boost your video rank on SERPs.
A video sitemap is a specialized type of sitemap that provides search engines with metadata about your videos, such as their title, description, URL, duration, and thumbnail image.
To utilize video sitemaps, you’ll first need to create a video sitemap for your videos. This can be done manually or with the help of a plugin or tool, depending on the platform you’re using to host your videos.
Once you’ve created your video sitemap, you can submit it to search engines like Google through their Webmaster Tools. This will help search engines discover and index your videos more quickly and accurately, improving their visibility and searchability in search results.
#6. Analyze Your Video Performance
Once you’ve started promoting your videos, it’s important to track their performance and see what’s working and what’s not. Google Analytics is a free tool that you can use to track your prioritized video metrics, such as views, watch time, and other engagement metrics.
Make sure to set up goals in Google Analytics so you can track how well your videos are converting into sales or other desired actions. You can also use YouTube Analytics to see how well your videos are performing on the platform.
From analyzing your video performance data, you can determine which videos are most popular with viewers and make changes to improve the performance of your other videos.
Wrapping Up
Optimizing your videos doesn’t mean that you have to appeal solely to search engine crawlers. It’s more about providing your audiences with the content they need, when they need it, in a format that’s easy for them to consume.
While SEO can seem quite intimidating, especially if you’re new to the game, by following the steps above, you can make sure your videos are seen by more people, which can lead to increased sales and revenue.
Author
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).
Twitter: @breadnbeyond
Email: andre@breadnbeyond.com
LinkedIn: Andre Oentoro