By Derek Iwasiuk
Video marketing is not just a great way to explain your products and services to your customers, but can also be an invaluable tool in SEO. However, for this to happen, you have to do it right. The purpose of this post is to help you learn how to create better videos and how you can use them to boost your rankings.
1. Provide Value
The difference between the most successful video marketing strategies and the ones that never make any impact is the value of the content. The only reason why your visitors would want to share your video and want to learn more about your brand is if your video is both entertaining and informative. So, to achieve this, what do you need to do?
Solve a problem and offer new information
The best videos are those that solve problems or provide the audience with new information. You can have your subject matter experts sit down for a quick interview or offer white boarding session. The key is to understand the plight of your audience and offer a solution.
Make the videos easy to find
Another key thing you need to do is ensure all your videos are easy to find. Create a user-centric video resource center where your audience can view all your content. If it is difficult to find your videos, you will not achieve your goals. Creating separate landing pages for each of your videos will help with SEO.
Create a call-to-action
The purpose video marketing is to increase conversion. You will not achieve this if you don’t call-to-action. You can easily do this by adding in-video links, surveys, quizzes or forms to intercept your audience at key moments. If your video is a how-to, you can provide an in-video link to the product you are discussing.
2. Have SEO In Mind
Video SEO is important. Use your common sense when it comes to the technical side of SEO. Below are some important things you need to do.
Be smart with the metadata
Search engines can’t know what a video is about unless you describe it. You do this with the metadata. Your video description should include relevant long tail keywords and the HTML code should be populated.
Use transcriptions
Studies have shown that transcriptions of a video can significantly improve its search rankings; it is imperative that you use video transcriptions to unlock your video content. Transcriptions will further add more content for your videos.
Host the video on your domain
To enjoy more SEO value from the videos, host them on your domain. Yes you can consider video hosting platforms like Vimeo and YouTube but hosting on your own domain will impact your search rankings in a great way. If you use YouTube then embed the video on your website, you are simply giving away credit for your valuable content.
Have a sitemap
You have to create a video sitemap with links to landing pages for the video. There are platforms you can use to automate the video platform.
3. Be Social
Creating the best videos and hosting them on your domain is not the only thing you need to do to succeed. You also have to blast your videos over social media and encourage people to share. You have to create more paths that direct back to your website.
Preview content via YouTube
To make your content discoverable, post videos on YouTube to preview your videos. Don’t forget to add an in-video call-to-action that redirects viewers to your video. Your video needs to be different in that it has a different summary and title from that of your actual video. Motivate viewers to watch the actual video.
Allow the embedding of your video
Make it easy for other people to embed the video on their own websites. This increases the potential for inbound links and also promotes viral advertising.
Share on social media
Just like with normal posts, every new video you add to your website should be shared on your social media channels. Your followers need to know that you have added new content. This will increase viewership and also increase the number of inbound links to your site.
A lot goes into video marketing. It is your duty to keep up with the trends and devise better ways of ensuring your videos are watched. The aforementioned tips will help you get started on the right foot. However, if you are new to video SEO and need a little help, don’t be afraid to bring in a professional to help streamline your efforts.
