In a recent blog post, “How SEO Will Change In 2016”, we predicted that, when it comes to returns on investment (ROI), video content will soon overtake written content as the major breadwinner—and by some estimates, videos posted on social media channels will account for up to 75% of total internet traffic by 2017.
Youtube alone accounts for over 1 billion unique users every month, and it’s now considered the second-largest search engine in the world behind (you guessed it) Google. In spite of video’s growing popularity and potential marketing power, few companies are taking the time to actually optimize their videos correctly, and Youtube videos that don’t receive the same SEO treatment as websites and web pages are quickly buried under mountains of content…never to be seen.
To make sure you business’s Youtube video helps attract customers, sell a product, or contribute to your brand’s social signals, consider the following tips for creating optimized video content:
Provide Good Content
Just like Google, YouTube relies on a secret algorithm to determine which videos come back in search results, and because this algorithm can’t actually watch each video to see if it matches what the user was searching for, it must use other metrics to determine how “good” a particular video is. By creating informative or entertaining content that YouTube’s millions of users actually want to see, your video will be watched for longer, watched all the way to the end, liked, and commented on. These are all behaviors that send signals to YouTube’s ranking algorithm that your video is exactly what people were searching for.
Optimize For Keywords
Again, because YouTube’s algorithm can’t sit down and watch your video, it’s relying on you, the video’s creator, to explain exactly what the video is about. By using keywords in the video’s file name, title, video description, tags, and closed captioning, you can increase the likelihood that your video will be ranked in YouTube’s version of Search. And please note that just because it’s a video doesn’t mean you can ignore SEO rules. Keyword stuffing and other black hat SEO tactics should be avoided at all costs.
Choose A Great Thumbnail Image
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and nowhere is this more true than in the world of YouTube. An unappealing thumbnail has the ability to torpedo even the best content, while an eye-catching imagine can make mundane clips go viral. To increase your click-through rate and video views, try making your thumbnail something recognizable, using human faces, and adding attention-grabbing text to your image.
Develop Your Channel’s Page
A YouTube page that’s attractive and fully-optimized will speak to your brand’s trustworthiness and encourage users to subscribe to your channel. Just as Google uses inbound link to measure a website’s authority, YouTube sees the number of subscribers a channel has accrued as a sign that the brand is producing high-quality content that users care about.
Include A Call-To-Action
One of the best ways to increase your overall channel views is by prompting users to check out your other video content, and YouTube makes this extremely easy to do with clickable annotations that appear on the video screen. Professional vloggers often use the annotations at the end of a video, but it doesn’t hurt to put one in the beginning too—just in case the viewer has a short attention span.
For more tips on how optimizing your YouTube videos can increase your brand’s credibility in the eyes of consumers, contact Alecan Marketing Solutions today.
