Using video on your website is a powerful way to reach you audience. A well-crafted video with a catchy title can quickly go viral and is an excellent way to bring links to your site. In turn, links will help give your site search engine authority and ultimately higher search rankings.
The problem with video is that you can have great content full of all the keywords you are targeting, but search engines are going to have no idea what that content is. Here are some tips to help optimize your video content:
• Transcribe your video. Transcribing your video is a great way to let the search engines know what your video content is. There are many affordable transcribing services that will do this for you.
• Keep it short and sweet. Internet users have a short attention span. Keep your videos under six minutes. If you have a longer video that you can’t edit down to a reasonable time, consider breaking the video into chapters.
• Use catchy titles. Using a catchy title will give you much higher click through rates on your videos. Even if your subject is dry, be creative in how you title your video.
• Understand 3rd Party Hosting. Posting your video on video sharing websites like YouTube, Meta Cafe and Vimeo is a great way to increase your video views, but understand that these sites will have very high authority and will likely out rank your site. If the video becomes popular, the links will point to the hosting site instead of your website. One way to combat this is optimizing the on page factors on your site using the desired keywords. If you decide to post the video on a sharing site, change the titles and tags as not to compete with your site. Also, be sure to include a watermark of your website name as part of the video being posted on hosting sites.
• Offer the option to embed your code. Offering the code so visitors can post the video on their blog or website will help to make your video viral. Be sure to require a link back to your site for people who use the code.
• Use a good thumbnail image. Using a compelling thumbnail will greatly increase the chances of your video being viewed.
Dean Wicklund is Tower Media’s digital media manager.
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