By now, you’ve certainly seen video popping up in blended search results for Google and other major search engines. These engines are designed to display a mix of content types based on the keyword phrase for which the user is searching. This includes anything from news releases and deep content links to video and image assets.
What you may not be aware of is the huge opportunity that optimizing for video represents to your business. According to a recent Forrester Research study, video content is 53 times more likely to generate a first page Google ranking than traditional SEO. This is because there is a relative deficiency of video content (compared to other types of content) available online. A smaller pool of indexed content means more opportunity for those who proactively promote video content.
I am sure that you can think of at least a few video assets that your company can leverage – a client testimonial, a product demo, a television interview about your product or company? The trick is optimizing those videos for maximum visibility and impact.
Look beyond the traditional search engines
When asked to list the major search engines, most people would easily reference Google, Yahoo and Bing. However, when it comes to video content, sites such as YouTube and Tube Mogul should be top if mind as well. These sites are more than just user-generated content or an online video repository. Visitors go to these video sharing sites for information and education. They are veritable search engines that can make your video content more visible AND draw qualified traffic to your Web site when proper optimization techniques are utilized.
Similarities between traditional search engines and
“video” search engines
Take a look at YouTube and you’re sure to see some familiar features from traditional search engines. Search results are similarly organized with organic results in the center of the page and paid results across the top and right-hand side. They use a complex algorithm, that considers both on-page and off-page factors, to rank videos based on keywords, title, links, ratings, page views, and comments. However, unlike your Web site content, the content of video can’t be “read” by search engines. The video content must be transcribed into text and relevant keywords should be incorporated into the title, description and tags.
The devil is in the details
All search engines, traditional or video, work a little differently. Some use multiple types of metadata to determine video rank, while others give higher importance to the title, stripping out all other metadata. Some allow you to choose which image thumbnail to display, while others choose for you. It’s critical to understand the nuances of each search engine in order for your video content to appear and rank highly. This requires a specific implementation for each search engine, as well as the submission of BOTH the video itself and the page that it lives on.
Integrated and Measureable
Video can be a powerful tool in your online marketing arsenal when used as part of an integrated online marketing strategy and tied back to measureable business goals. For example, posting properly optimized videos on YouTube can be a particularly powerful tool for boosting your SEO rankings, but only if it’s tied back to your site so that all the qualified traffic you attract arrives at the intended destination!
Interested in learning more about video optimization? Check out our free webinar on-demand titled, “Not Just Video—VideoSEO.”
If you are looking to leverage video, BusinessOnLine can help you optimize in a way that it is measureable and configured to support your overall online marketing efforts.
