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Virtual Assistance
It is no secret that video has become an essential part of any business’ online marketing strategy. After all, digital video has become so popular in recent years that Cisco has published a report saying that by 2016, more than half of consumer Internet traffic is expected to be the result of digital video viewing. This has led online marketers to create a huge number of branded digital video content. As a result, it is expected that in the following five years, a third of all Internet advertising expenses will be spent on digital video production.
Video is generally great because it opens more opportunities for engagement with your followers and creates more interest for your website than pure text articles do. It is also good because it allows you to become more creative in delivering your message to your target audience. Video content is also seen as great content by most consumers because it gives them a break from the usual, obvious advertising. It is a lot easier to digest and more appealing to view. It is no wonder, then, that video has exponentially grown in popularity in recent years.
On the part of business owners and online marketers, the popularity of video isn’t all hearts and roses. For one thing, it also poses a problem with discovery. Since video has become popular, everyone rushed into video marketing. The Internet has therefore developed a “video content jungle” where it can be quite difficult to make your brand stand out. It has given birth to another animal that you need to conquer, namely: video SEO. Unless you optimize your videos, they aren’t likely to reach their intended audience. If they don’t reach their intended audience, then what’s the point of creating them in the first place?
The good news is that video SEO, while indeed a daunting task, doesn’t have to be too difficult. There are a few essential tips that can serve as your guide and help you make your videos rise above the competition. The key is in keeping your target audience—their needs, their wants, and their language—in mind and remembering that video SEO really isn’t all that different from the usual optimizing you do with your other pieces of content and your website in general. Once you master the art and science of video SEO, you’ll be glad you made the effort, as the benefits are definitely well worth it.
Choose Keywords Carefully
You’ve been using keywords to optimize your pure text content, right? Well, guess what? Keywords are essential parts of video optimization as well. In the same way you tell search engine bots what your text content is all about, you should also let them know what your video content is all about. And just as you make sure your keywords fit into your text content naturally, you should also make sure the keywords for your video content are natural.
Keywords tell search engine bots what your video content is all about in the same way they do for your text content.
The use of keywords is actually among the easiest tasks to accomplish when it comes to optimizing videos. The problem with it being easy to accomplish is that you might end up taking it for granted. Never forget to choose your keywords carefully. Consider where you want your videos to rank well and then do some research on how certain keywords fare on your chosen search engine. If you want to rank well on Google (as most businesses do), for example, type a potential keyword in Google’s search box to see how well videos are ranked using that particular keyword. If videos rank well, then the keyword is good to go.
Learn to Tag
Tags matter. This is something you need to keep in mind when optimizing videos. Just like keywords, tags help search engines categorize your videos so they can easily be indexed when your target audience conducts a related search. They make each video easier for your target audience to find, even in the congested online content jungle. Remember to keep your tags simple; avoid using complicated terminologies the average individual may not even understand, much less use. Always put yourself in your target audience’s shoes when choosing tags; use words they are likely to use as well.
One good thing about tags is that they do not necessarily have to reflect the content of your video. Rather, they can be a representation of anything that is on the video. For example, let’s say you own a meat processing business and you made a video about the different types of processed meat. You don’t have to use “meat processing” or “processed meat” as tags (although you could); you can opt to use the names of the processed meat (sausages, salami, bacon, ham, etc.) instead. This way, your video will have a chance of ranking for searches using any of those terms.
Mind the Titles
Back when we had no Internet and no search engines, creating titles simply involved catching the attention of your target audience. This meant you can be as creative as you wanted to be and you could use whatever witty word combinations you can come up with that will both catch the interest of the intended audience and tell them what the content is all about. These days, however, it’s no longer enough to just catch the eye of the audience; you need to catch the attention of the search engines as well.
Naturally, the best way to catch the search engines’ attention is to use your killer keywords in your video’s title. The earlier in the title your keyword is used, the more effective your title is likely to be. Going back to the earlier example, the title, “Processed Meat—Types and Procedures” is likely to be more effective than “Different Types of Processed Meat” if you’re ranking for the keyword “processed meat.” It also helps to use such popular words and phrases as “How to,” “review,” and “about” when creating titles. In short, your titles have to be attractive to both search engine bots and your human audience.
