Have you heard the references to YouTube as a major search engine? To common surfers that’s not the case, it’s just a video sharing site. To those of us with knowledge of seo techniques we know that YouTube and other video sharing sites can offer up a lot in terms of optimization.
So how in the hell do you optimize a piece of video content when the search engines don’t actually watch videos to know what’s within?
Here’s a list to explain some easy tricks to video optimization:
Title Text
Everything has a title and that’s the primary way that the search engines do their indexing and listing of results. You’ve got approx 99 characters to optimize that title so as with other things like site content and articles it’s important to utilize your focal keyword phrases. Even if you can’t get that coveted top spot, then still aim for it. Related videos get just as many views in some cases.
Descriptions
People do in fact read the video descriptions when getting into a movie. You’ve got 5,000 characters (which is a ridiculous amount) so use that space to include info about the video. Remember that user reviews and ratings are a big part of how you appear in the results so use your description to ask people to rank you. Likewise, utilize your targeted keywords.
Tags
Use description and useful search terms (keywords) that you used in your title and description. Remember to include names and branding phrases to make it easy to find your video.
Broadcasting options
Choose options that are appropriate to your video. If you want traffic and hits off your videos so that they’re shared appropriately then you’re going to need to set your video to public. Some marketers will mark a video as private just so they can work on it and get it ready for launch. Just remember to set the content to public once you do launch.
Comments
You don’t have to leave comments enabled on your video, but people don’t like it when they can’t leave a response. In a world of sharing online, people wonder if there’s something wrong with a video overall when a business or poster shuts down comments on a video.
Video responses
These can help with visibility because those video responses link to your video automatically, make sure you leave this option open. Video responses can contribute quite a bit to a viral campaign’s visibility
Sharing
Leave the options open for sharing such as embedding and syndication. The broader the reach of your video, the more likely you are to get good view counts and traffic. If you want your traffic to spread virally you have to tear down any obstacles that prevent it.
You don’t necessarily need to host your own videos, either. While this can give you more control over the video itself it’s extremely easy to upload the content to video share sites like YouTube. Because those sites are already heavy in traffic, it’s an ideal place to get your video seen, shared and passed around virally.
To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt
P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.
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Joerg Weishaupt is a 48 year old entrepreneur, software architect, search engine optimization and social media expert. Joerg has been building a lot of profitable Internet businesses since he put his first website online in 1995. He is also one of the founders and partners of Social Media Science LLC, where he launched a content syndication network called SYNND.
Joerg resides in a small, quiet community about 100 miles outside of Munich, Germany. If you ever seek to find him, look for where the cows gather.
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