Frontline Perspectives

Unlike other content on your website, most of the information in videos cannot be read by Google or other search engines. Although it can index some of your video content, like a title and a description, anything within the video itself cannot be read and therefore won’t help your video rank well in organic search.

However, there are some steps you can take to optimize the information around your videos and maximize their visibility in search.

Nine Ways to Optimize your Videos

1. URL: Be smart when naming the URL of the page where the video content will reside.  What is this particular video about?  Make it obvious so browsers will know immediately that this is content they were looking for. For example, check out OurWaterCounts – the URL is directly tied to the video content.
2. Page Content: Add descriptive copy around your video content.  Give a brief summary of the video. Word choice is important – make sure you use relevant keywords so that your page will come up in the search engine results.
3. Page Title and Meta Description: Optimize the page title tag and meta description so they describe the content and include targeted keywords. This goes for all pages of your site, but it’s especially important if you want search engines to recognize and value your video pages because there will usually be less content on the page.
4. File Name: Name the file in a descriptive way.  Believe it or not, this counts for SEO. “Video_1” is not going to help people find your video.
5. Navigation: Put your video in your site navigation.  Don’t just link to it from one page — put a link to your video (or video home page) in your navigation so it can be found by as many website visitors as possible.  More traffic to your page = more views, which means your message is getting heard.
6. Promotion: People don’t just find all of your regular content so don’t expect them to just find your videos. Link to your video from any relevant company sites including through your social media. Reach out to distributors, partners, bloggers and anyone else that may find your video interesting. Provide them with a link or a press release to make their job easier and make sure to post to Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter.
7. YouTube: YouTube is the largest video search engine in the world, so it has to figure into your video optimization plans. Consider a YouTube page if you have enough content (or at least claim your name for the future). YouTube is easy to embed on your site and makes it easy for users to find and share. The easier your content is to share, the more people will share it. Plus, YouTube will track metrics for you – and aggregate them if you embed the video in multiple places.  Unless there are extraordinary circumstances, every video you make should be put up on YouTube. If your video is really worth the viewer’s time, someone else may post it to YouTube if you don’t — so make sure you own your content.
8. Transcript: If the description isn’t enough content for the search engines, include a link to the transcribed video content. Even if it’s in a PDF so it doesn’t bog down the rest of your page, this allows search engines to read the content. This is a great option for longer videos with a lot of detailed information – plus, it gives you more content and a print source for people to quote or reference.
9. mRSS (Media RSS and/or Video Sitemap):  Create an mRSS or Video Sitemap to ensure the search engines recognize that you have video content that they should pay attention to.  Google gives specific instructions for creating a Google Video Sitemap and you can also submit your mRSS to Yahoo.  You should also be able to upload these things through your Google Webmaster webmaster Tools and/or Yahoo Site Explorer accounts, if you have them.

Brand Inside Your Video
Even though search engines can’t read your video content, it is important to include your logo, website and branding in the video itself in case other people embed the video in their website and it gets separated from your description.

Follow these nine steps and watch your video get to more people. Anyone have other techniques they use to optimize their video?