Video SEO: 6 ways to increase the visibility of your videos in search results
There is no doubt that video content has become like a gold mine, with users consuming millions of video content every day on different platforms.
On the part of video makers, competition is fierce now however, a video SEO strategy can get your videos exposed to your target audience.
What is video SEO?
Simply put, Video SEO optimizes your video content to encourage search engines to index and rank it based on your target keywords.
It involves setting up metadata related to what users are searching for, the main goal being for the video to get as many views as possible.
Is video SEO the same as website SEO?
SEO for video and SEO for website are not the same, although they are slightly related.
YouTube is the second most used search engine after Google, and YouTube videos, if optimized, can help in the SEO of your web pages when they are embedded in them.
Users who visit your web pages are more likely to see your YouTube videos, which act as an external source of traffic.
The searches made on YouTube and Google have a different goal, also the process of optimizing the content on both is not the same.
6 simple ways to boost your video's visibility in search results
1 . Create high quality video content
Your target audience is interested in high-quality videos that can help solve their problems, video hosting platforms also want to promote high-quality videos, users' interaction with high-quality videos can extend their viewing time and increase the number of returning visitors.
These videos will get many likes, shares and positive comments, which are signals that trigger YouTube's algorithm to boost their visibility, and the algorithm suggests them to users who are likely to view them and also share them on other visual platforms like Instagram.
How to make a high quality video?
It starts with identifying the key points of your target audience. In addition, YouTube keyword research tools can help you in this regard. In addition, you can use the YouTube autocomplete feature to find questions that users ask on YouTube.
Come up with a useful solution and practical steps on how to implement it for your users.
Have a good camera if you want to show your face and a good microphone to improve the sound quality, record with free video recording tools like OBS Studio and edit your video to improve its quality.
2. Get the video title and description right
Video titles and descriptions talk about your video content folders to the user and algorithms, and users rely on the title and description to determine if the video content contains what they're looking for.
Titles and descriptions help the algorithm understand and recommend your video to users whose search queries match, so if users click on your video after reading your title and don't hit their target, they hit the back button and go elsewhere.
YouTube algorithm keeps track of this and will lower your video's rank if it consistently appears that users don't find it useful.
Do the following to write a well-optimized video title and description:
Add the target keyword that you want to rank in your video title. For YouTube, your video title should be no longer than 100 characters.
However, it is recommended to keep the title within 70 characters to avoid it getting cut off in search results, also put your keyword at the beginning of the title.
Your video description is not the same as web page meta descriptions. On YouTube, you can write a 5,000 character video description that describes in detail what your video content is about.
A well-written video description can grab the attention of the right audience who is likely to see the entire video, again, the target keyword should appear in the first 100 characters so that the algorithm easily picks it up and suggests it to the relevant users.
Avoid keyword stuffing while trying to improve your video title and description, as it sends the negative signal you want to play with the algorithm.
3. Choose a suitable video hosting platform
The platform on which you host your videos is important when it comes to enhancing the visibility of your videos. In addition, some platforms work better than others. For example, YouTube has billions of viewers who watch different types of videos.
There are other free video hosting platforms like:
- Vimeo
- Twitch
- Daily Motion
Since boosting your video visibility is your goal, YouTube is the best, its algorithm understands the search goal in any way.
You don't have to be an SEO expert to rank #1 on YouTube, all it takes is to implement the simple tips you learned in this article.
4 . Make sure your thumbnail is attractive
The first contact users have with a video is the thumbnail, it prompts them to click a video above other videos that appear in search results.
No matter how good and useful the content in your video is, no one will click on it if you don't make it known in your thumbnail.
Video creators invest time in designing thumbnails that outlast their competitors. An attractive thumbnail increases click-through rate, a YouTube ranking factor.
Although YouTube automatically creates a thumbnail from the video you upload, you shouldn't rely on it, a custom thumbnail will make all the difference because you can design it to grab users' attention.
How do you create a custom thumbnail that grabs the attention of your target audience?
There are various graphic tools for designing a custom thumbnail.
Canva is a popular tool used by content creators, because it has pre-made templates for YouTube thumbnails, so, instead of creating a design from scratch, you can edit a template and customize it to suit your needs.
Your thumbnail should have these three basic elements:
- The keyword you want to rank for
- hd picture
- The combination of colors makes your thumbnail look bright and attractive
If you are using other graphic design tools that do not have YouTube templates, you should enhance your thumbnails.
Do the following to improve thumbnails:
- Set your dimensions to 1280 x 720 pixels (16:9 ratio) in . PNG, BMG, GIF, .JPG.
- Keep the size under 2MB
- Zoom in and out of your thumbnail to make sure it won't lose quality
5. Upload your video text
Transcription of your video helps search engines better understand your video content because it provides a literal overview.
Other benefits include:
- Allows users with listening difficulties to follow your video
- Google crawls text to rank web pages
- It creates a better user experience where users can read while watching the video
Many video creators don't see it as something worth doing, but the truth is that this is important, otherwise YouTube wouldn't have a feature that supports uploading video scripts.
6. Add hashtags to your videos with precision
Hashtags, when combined with title and description optimization, rank your videos, help users find your content on YouTube and also boost your video's visibility.