Video is becoming the way people consume content on the internet. Youtube reports that there are 100 hours of video uploaded to it every minute. With more and more videos comes a problem for Google and other search engines – how to know what information is contained in these videos without manually watching them?
Currently, there is no elegant solution to this problem for Google. The Search Giant relies heavily on the description of the YouTube video and other data which we will look at in this article. Here’s a few ways to get your video ranked:
- Target a key-phrase that returns video results in Google Search Pages.
This is a no-brainer. Using the Search Box in Google, type words to which your video relates and see if there are video thumbnails in the results given. Try a few variations as Google doesn’t return videos for all keywords, only relevant ones. Listing high on Google as well as a video sharing site is recommended.
- Use the target key-phrase in the title of the Video.
Informed by the first step, choose a title for your video that reflects your key-phrase.
- Your description is important, leverage it.
Like any SEO strategy, you must feed the Googlebot. Your description should use keywords, but also be user-friendly. Fortunately, there are no character limits in video descriptions, like in Website Meta Descriptions, so write long descriptions with the most important info and keywords at the start.
- Encourage People to subscribe to your Channel and like your Videos.
At the end of your video call-out to your viewers, asking them to subscribe to your YouTube. Enable auto-subscribes by adding the following parameter to any link you share across social media (“?sub_confirmation=1”). Subscribers are more likely to share your video with their friends, thus get it seen, and those friends liking the video and subscribing to the channel contribute to the videos ranking.
According to a recent report from Searchmetrics, more videos are ranking on Google Search Results than ever before. Only images (not product ads) are more prevalent on a Google Search than Video.
You can expect this to switch over time. With more and more video, it of course becomes important to produce videos. Of possibly even more importance however, is to have it ranked so that it will be seen. At Insightful Media, we can help. By implementing the latest best practices for videos and employing a performance-based model, we can ensure gains in quality traffic.
