Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO)

Relevance is key when it comes to YouTube content creation. You must understand what your potential customers are looking for from the videos they consume. We call this the intent of the user: what is it they are hoping to find from their search results and the videos suggested based on that search.

Typically, people want to be educated or entertained by video content. If your company can offer a unique perspective or share new information on a subject that your consumers have shown an interest in, you can become a thought leader and subject matter expert (SME) in their eyes. Videos are engaging, and brands must utilize this fact to attract and build a relationship with their potential customers.

Video marketing does not begin and end with simply creating and publishing videos on video sharing sites such as YouTube. As with all forms of online content, people need to see your videos in order for them to make an impression. You need to make sure that your audience can find your videos and that’s where video search engine optimization (VSEO) comes in.

For users to find your video, you have to include several pieces of key information when you publish content. These pieces of information can be found by search engines, allowing them to properly interpret your content and identify it as relevant and useful to users. From titles and descriptions to keywords and key terms, your video content must be created to satisfy both human viewers and crawling search engines.

The text of your video is the most important thing that a search engine indexer analyzes in order to determine where your video should rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). Apart from including the appropriate keywords in your video title, you should look to include keywords in the description as well. The keywords for which you are optimizing your content should be carefully selected to increase relevance. Tagging your video with related keywords provides search engines with a better idea of what your video is about.

In your descriptions tab, try to provide a keyword-rich description that accurately describes the content of your video. A video’s description is the second thing that search engine indexers parse after the title. One of the trickiest things about optimizing video content is that videos are invisible to search engines because they are flash based. On the other hand, your description and title can be read by search engines which is why they are so critical.

You can also leverage YouTube’s captions annotation feature, by adding subtitles, descriptions and links on top of your video. Posting a link to your video as a reply in the comments section to a related video is another way of building backlinks to your video, but be warned: external links are often hidden by default while they’re held for approval by the channel’s owner. Responding to comments also helps with engagement and shows your audience that you are present and care about their thoughts on your video. In these ways you can increase your video’s visibility and target the appropriate audience.

It’s important to note that these tactics will only help your content rank slightly higher than videos published by people who don’t take VSEO into consideration. The most important part of creating video content is ensuring that your content provides valuable, relevant information to your target audience. Reaching out to your consumers and communicating with them through video is not only a great way to engage with them but it also provides you with a means to understand more about your target viewers. 

By analyzing the demographics, interests and intentions of your video audience you can communicate with them in a more meaningful way about your products and services and, hopefully, drive them to your website and convert them into paying customers. The first 15 seconds of your video are what will either hook them or drive them to click on something else. Use those first few seconds wisely.

Video marketing is something that many clients are advised to do by their marketing firms and there are some good reasons behind this. A video adds a lot of value to a website homepage or landing page. Videos are an interactive form of content which makes them very engaging to visitors. They can help boost your SEO ranking by increasing the amount of time that visitors spend on your page. It takes a lot longer for someone to watch a video than to scan the text content on a page.

Videos can also serve as a great branding tool. A piece of video content should reflect the overall look and feel of a brand. This means that a video should not only include the colors of your logo and/or website but it should also reflect how you want your potential customers to view your brand. A more serious company offering B2B technology services would probably want their video to come off looking clean and professional whereas a business that supplies crayons for children might want their video to be animated and upbeat with cute characters and dynamic graphics.

With almost 2.5 billion active monthly users, YouTube is one of the most popular sites on the web. Since being purchased by Google it has become more popular than ever before and more content is being uploaded by corporations and individuals alike. Still, despite the fact that people are spending more and more time on YouTube or streaming services, television advertising is still a player in the game. YouTube and Google want to change all that.

Marketers and corporations should examine the kind of possibilities that video advertising on YouTube can offer. This type of content can be embedded in a company’s website but it can be available on YouTube for the public to access. This leads to a much higher chance of the public sharing a video and it becoming viral. Companies like Ring Home Security have shown us that a viral video is as simple as hilarious footage of a customer named Bill arriving at his front door to find a package for his wife but “a bill for Bill”. This just goes to show the possibilities available to brands who embrace the viral video marketing trend.

When prospective customers are looking for businesses in your field, you want to be at the top of their search results. With video increasing in popularity across the board in digital marketing, VSEO is more important than ever. To make sure you’re staying on top of keywords, trends, and tactics, partnering with the right partner with decades of experience in this area is key.

As a full-service digital marketing and advertising agency, inSegment can help your business with a high-level SEO audit, including Video SEO. Our dedicated SEO services for any industry is designed to help partners perform better in search results and offer flawless user experience. Contact inSegment to learn how we can help you engage with prospective customers with our comprehensive SEO strategies.