7 Video Tips To Impact Your Website’s SEO Rankings

We all know that video is a powerful medium. That’s why you can see it flooding up your social media newsfeeds or your search nowadays. But although you’ve got your business’ website SEO down to a tee, video SEO is a whole different field. 

Even if you’ve ensured that your corporate video production is at its highest quality and that it effectively communicates your business’ important concepts to your target audience, this doesn’t always mean that the people watching it will click through your website. 

Here are just a few reasons why: 

• They can’t find your video in the first place because you haven’t optimized it yet
• Your content might be irrelevant to the people viewing 
• It’s a little too long for their liking
• Audiences have no idea what your video is about because the title and the description is too vague or the thumbnail looks dull or misleading 
• You’re not promoting it through other channels 

Videos improve your rank on search engines significantly, but they can be useless if they can’t be found. Here’s how you can make sure that your video is seen by the relevant audiences so you can stand out on search:

1.   Host The Video On Your Website 

There are tons of platforms available for video sharing nowadays. If you’re deciding on whether you should post on Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook, or other third-party streaming sites, stop for a minute. Though these platforms will indeed cut costs and increase your loading time, it’s always a better idea to host videos on what you have right now—your own domain. 

It’s important to remember that the core focus of SEO is to increase overall traffic and website views. Hosting your videos on your domain means that anytime your video is shared with others, your website is shared as well. 

By hosting on your website, you can also bypass the ads that appear before your video if it is hosted on sites like YouTube and Vimeo.

2.  Improve Search With A Video Sitemap 

In relation to the first point, if you’re using your website to host your videos, ensure that you have a video sitemap. This is often overlooked by many marketers so take advantage of it.

Sitemaps help search engines find the videos on your website as it offers a more thorough readout of your video in a language that search bots understand. Information found in sitemaps includes the little details that comprise your videos such as content location, duration, title, and description. Once you have this established, your videos are more likely to attract an increasing number of visitors to your website. 

3.  Pay Attention To Your Thumbnail 

Everyone knows not to judge a book by its cover, but a lot of people actually judge a video by its thumbnail alone. This tiny image says a lot about your brand and does a lot for your website as it can double your visibility and traffic in search engine results. 

Don’t ever let your thumbnail be auto-selected because you can end up with an unflattering freeze frame. Find an engaging still for your video’s thumbnail that best represents the content of the video. For added flair and a touch of personalization, you can also inject your business’ branding. 

4.  Add A Transcript 

Transcripts make your videos more accessible to a larger audience including deaf or hearing-impaired viewers. Video transcriptions allow your content to be viewed even in silent mode while retaining the message you’re trying to convey. 

Not only that, the text of any kind is the key to optimizing your video for search engines. These captions make your videos scrapable by crawler bots, therefore increasing your searchability.

5.  Allow Your Video To Be Embedded 

When hosting a video on your own website, make sure that others are allowed to embed your video. The act of embedding increases the number of backlinks to your website and this potentially provides your site with an increase in traffic. 

Ensure you’re generating high-quality backlinks by creating catchy, interesting, and shareable videos. Focus on content that either evokes an emotional response or educates your audience with pieces of information relevant to your viewers. 

6.  Research Your Keywords 

You can’t talk about SEO without mentioning keywords. There is a lot out there, but you can’t just pick and choose what sounds good for your title and video description. As always, research is the answer. 

Look up keyword dominance in your industry and learn what is most popular. If you’ve been publishing videos for a while now, you can also check your analytics to see what keywords are making a significant impact on your campaign. 

Spend time crafting an engaging video title and description that isn’t overstuffed with keywords. Keep it precise, but make sure that it will still grab the attention of your target audience. 

7.  Host Your Videos On YouTube 

While nothing beats hosting your videos on your own website, no one can deny the large number of users YouTube currently has. That’s built-in traffic right there.

The platform, on its own, is the second-largest search engine in terms of the number of search queries. Plus, it’s owned by Google. This makes it one of the best channels to reach out to your target audience and tell them about your business. 

Now while it’s great to be aware of how you can improve your video SEO strategy, don’t let this overwhelm you too much. Video harnesses a great power that can have a massive impact on your website’s SEO. Learn about it, understand it, and apply it.

At the end of it all, though, the message of your video should always take the spotlight. Don’t forget to have fun producing content that’s true to your brand and that gives value to your audience. 

Sophia Young is a content writer covering lifestyle and fashion topics. She’s actively participating as a guest blogger for various blogs and has been co-authoring some articles of her colleagues. She’s currently enrolled in a content marketing course hoping to expand her knowledge in digital marketing.

Sophia Young