Video seo basics

Video is an expensive asset. Get the most out of your effort with these video optimization tips to maximize organic visibility.

Video is one of the most expensive and time intensive assets to create. So much time goes into crafting the video, obtaining talent, drafting the script, producing it, and editing to get the perfect final product. But, before you call your video complete, there’s one more crucial step – optimization. It’s easy to forget in the flurry of excitement that comes with wrapping a video project. But, just a few optimizations can make your videos continue to work hard for you, drawing incremental traffic from organic search and improving on-page engagement.

Follow these few simple steps to optimize your videos and maximize organic visibility.

use keywords in titles and descriptions

Keywords continue to be the building blocks of SEO. Until Google becomes omnipotent and can understand websites at a glance, crawlers will continue to rely on keywords to understand and rank content. Keyword research illustrates what consumers are looking for and how they search for it. Mirroring their language in content not only improves organic visibility, it also shows you understand your customer.

Use that keyword research to incorporate keywords into video titles and descriptions when possible. This holds true for videos hosted on a player like YouTube and videos embedded on your site.

Add transcripts

Transcripts are crucial for hearing impaired users and part of an ADA compliant site. They also improve indexability and can improve rank – the more copy you have for Google to crawl, the easier Google can understand and rank that content. This same rule applies for videos posted on social media, especially considering Facebook’s soundless autoplay.

When embedding video on your website, add video transcript directly to the HTML of each of the pages where your videos are hosted and to the video page itself. When posting videos to Facebook, always add video captions.

Schema Markup and sitemaps

Schema markup and accurate sitemaps help search engines locate, identify, and index videos. Schema markup can include a whole host of information, including location, duration, upload date, video subject matter, and even a thumbnail URL. Google uses this information to power carousels and other search results.

Sitemaps make content clear to Google and can help new content be indexed and rank faster than average. If your site hosts many videos, consider creating a video sitemap in addition to your original sitemap. You can then upload the video sitemap through Google Search Console to speed up indexation and aid in crawlability, or simply update the current sitemap to include new videos as they are published.

One more time. how do i optimize my videos?

• Think about keywords. Make sure your titles and descriptions use keywords and are clearly describing the video. Searchers and Google should know exactly what they’re about to see before they click play.
• Add transcripts. Stay ADA compliant and help Google better understand your videos with transcripts, both on your landing pages and on Facebook.
• Incorporate schema markup and update sitemaps. Help Google quickly find and index your videos with complete schema markup and accurate sitemaps.

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