Optimize Your Video for Search

First off, it's true that video SEO is not the same as regular SEO. Video SEO has also changed significantly in the last few years. Now we can't browse the internet without seeing a video, and we all walk around with cell phones in our pockets that have the ability to shoot decently high-quality videos anywhere. Video SEO is simply optimizing your video to be indexed and rank on the search engine results pages for relevant keyword searches. There are many optimization strategies to give your videos a higher chance of ranking.

How video-focused is your Website?

Gaining rank with your video on universal search has a lot to do with the authority of your website, how video-focused it is, and how it ranks for video-related queries. Here are a few bullets that might help you along the way:

• Choose the Right Video Hosting Platform: If you're less concerned about getting traffic to your website, and more focused on general brand awareness, YouTube and Vimeo may be options to explore.
• Embed the Video You Want Ranked First on the Page: Google typically indexes only one video per page.
• Pay Attention to the Title and Description of Your Video: Just like they do for a blog post, the title and meta description play a factor into ranking videos. Spend time crafting an engaging video title and description.
• Make Sure Your Thumbnail Image Is Engaging: Your video thumbnail is more important than your title because it determines whether or not people will click.
• Insert a Video Transcript: The text that pairs with your video is known as a video transcript. Not only do video transcripts make your videos more accessible to a larger audience, they make your videos more scrapable by search bots since there's additional text on the page.

Why are videos so popular?

A video is very accessible, easy to consume and engages the audience’s attention for longer periods of time. A video contains much more information than text and images. The ease, accessibility, and immersion of video means that people spend a longer time watching content that you produce. If you can make an engaging video, people spend more time on your webpage. A well-optimized video can increase your chances of getting featured on the front page of Google by as much as a factor of 53. With so many people watching videos all the time, aided by mobile phones and ever-developing tech and techniques, video content is bound to surge your overall brand image to the top of the search results page.