SEO for Video Content ? Strategies for Video Search Optimization
According to the latest research, not only is online video the fastest growing media online, but is has now surpassed search as the most popular activity online. Online video views surpassed searches performed on the top 5 search engines, according to stats released by comScore and covered by ReelSEO in October 2008.
Online video, combined with search, is one of the most effective ways to drive internet users to your videos and market your products and services. However, being that online video marketing is such a new strategy, there are still many aspects of video marketing that are not well understood. For online marketers and video content producers, it is important to learn and practice techniques that increase the likelihood that internet users will discover their content via the major search engines. To do this, one must understand video search optimization, also known as video SEO.
To start off, let’s answer the simple question, “What is Video SEO, or SEO for Video?” Basically, it is the process of creating and publishing a video such that it is easily discovered, indexed, and ranked by search engines. When we talk about video SEO, there are really 2 distinct strategies and methods to consider.
First, there is what is known as “Posted” video SEO. With “posted” video optimization, the strategy is to get as many views to your video content as possible. To do this, you can take advantage of the massive audience that video sharing websites like YouTube, metacafe, blip.tv and others have. One other benefit to this strategy is that you can leverage the existing authority and page rank that these sites have in order to show up in Universal search on the major search engines.
When optimizing video for “Posted” video SEO, it is crucial that you pay close attention to the keywords that you choose to include in the upload fields like tags, descriptions, titles, etc… It is also recommended that you utilize many of the tools and services available that allow you to automatically upload your video content to many video sharing websites at once. The main downfall with “posted” video SEO is that it is more difficult to get users back to your own website property.
If your goal is to generate traffic back to your website, then you may want optimize video content on your own website. The strategy of optimizing video content on your own website is commonly referred to as “hosted” video SEO, or website video SEO. Because universal search is growing across the major search engines, an opportunity exists for website owners to leverage video content to rank well within both video search engines as well as the major search engines like Google and Yahoo.
With “hosted” video SEO, it is most important that you follow best practices in general for search engine optimization. Because search engines can not yet read within video content, it is important that you optimize the HTML pages that contain your video content much in the same way that you would with regular SEO. Although there are many detailed tips and techniques for “hosted” video SEO, most can be summed up with the following tips:
1) When including video on a web page, make certain that you populate the page with relevant on-page text.
2) Consider publishing a transcript or captions for your video.
3) Publish all your videos within the same directory or subdomain and keep each video on its own unique URL.
4) Create a video sitemap and offer an MRSS feed so that search engines can more easily find and index your video content.
5) Be sure to generate off-site links to your video pages by encouraging users to share and link to your videos.
Whether you choose “posted” or “hosted” video SEO, ReelSEO is a great reference and resource for your to learn more tips and guidelines for video search engine optimization and marketing. ReelSEO is the only website available today that is completely focused on providing expert advice when it comes to video search engine optimization. If you want to learn more, ReelSEO is the most authoritative site in existence.
Good luck and much success to you and your video optimization efforts.
Before you dive further into online video, be sure to check out the VSEO experts at ReelSEO, the online video marketer’s guide. Learn more about video marketing, video SEO, video advertising, and general best practices for online video publishing and marketing.
