Everything You Need to Know About Video SEO in 2021

Video content is possibly one of the most famous platforms today where numerous people spend a lot of their time-consuming content in different mediums. With decent internet and improved video quality being more accessible as the years go by, videos can definitely attract large numbers of traffic from varying sources. 

This is why improving your video’s visibility is a must for SEOs and webmasters. Especially for the ones that use video as their primary content creation platform. It’s apparent that you should put in effort into making your videos more visible on the platforms mentioned, but it is also important for you to try and take advantage of any other platforms that can effectively market your videos. One specific platform would be Search Engines like Google. Although search engines are not primarily used to look for video content, there are keywords/queries that specifically serve video content since it targets the intent of the user, it’s a more convenient form of answering the user’s questions, and sometimes users prefer watching videos over reading text-heavy pages. That said, here’s what you need to know about Video SEO:

What is Video SEO and How is it Different from Traditional SEO

Video SEO is the act of optimizing your videos to help them be more visible in the search engine results for relevant and beneficial keywords/queries to reach a wider audience base. 

Video SEO and traditional SEO is closely related in terms of their goals – having the optimized page or video be more visible in the search results. The primary difference between the two is that instead of optimizing the factors inside a page, you will optimize various details/facets of the video. These facets include the Title, Description, tags, etc.

While having similarities, Video SEO and Youtube SEO are completely different practices wherein video SEO focuses on ranking your videos in search engines while Youtube SEO focuses, as the name suggests, on Youtube rankings.

Video SEO Keywords

The last thing you have to remember before optimizing your videos is you should be targeting relevant and beneficial keywords. This is one of the most important steps in your Video SEO Process since this will be your foundation to improving your video’s search visibility.

What you need to remember when you’re determining which keywords to optimize for is that the keyword’s intent and type of search results that they have should be a perfect match for your video. You can’t expect to rank your video for a keyword that only has web pages in its search results. At the same time, you can’t expect your video to actually perform well while ranking for keywords that serve a different intent. 

Here’s an example:

When you search for the keyword “Bow tie”, the main focus of the search results would be providing web pages that contain useful information about the object. 

But when you search for the keyword “How to tie a bow tie”, the search results drastically change to be filled with a massive video tutorial, images, and other relevant videos. The traditional webpage-heavy search results only start at the bottom of the page.

This means that the keyword “How to tie a bow tie” has search results that focus on video content. So, if you produce videos related to tying a bow tie, then this would be the perfect keyword for you. This is what it means to target the right kind of keywords for your videos. 

This isn’t anything new since search intent has been one of the most talked-about topics in the industry. As seasoned SEOs, we already know not to produce a text-heavy, informative landing page for keywords that primarily display product categories or specific product pages. This has the same thought process with Video SEO keyword research wherein we pick the right kind of keywords to achieve massive success.

Now that we’ve talked about the foundation of Video SEO, let’s talk about the best practices when it comes to optimizing your videos for search:

Video SEO Best Practices

Update older videos

A good first step in optimizing your videos for SEO is to take a look at your older video content. This would help you see what kinds of videos have been successful, along with videos that might be able to gain more traffic despite them being older. This means updating the title and description to include more searchable terms and keywords and even adding relevant links and tags that you might have missed out on before.

On YouTube, updating your video content is pretty simple to do as the editing system makes the process smooth and hassle-free. This is similar to updating older blogs to keep up with current content. While updating the videos themselves might not be an option, adding annotations and links to an updated video would not only bring in new viewers but also lead them into newer content.

Optimize quality

One of the best reasons why people view content is because of how well-made they are. In YouTube, the videos that get the most views are from channels that commit to putting in quality in their production. This means having good audio and video quality, along with solid graphics and images. Creating quality videos is something that may not happen on the very first video but investing your time and effort would bring in better-looking videos that audiences would enjoy.

While some people might think that you would need professional help to create quality videos, it can be done for much less, especially with much of the things that you need to know available on the internet. Content delivery is one of the most crucial elements of driving more views and traffic and making sure that you are able to refine it are ingredients for success.

Taking Advantage of Social Media 

Social media websites have become the best place to share content on the internet. From Twitter to Facebook, sharing content opens up more opportunities to expand your audience and drive more traffic into a website. Over the past few years, Facebook has been optimizing its website to become a more viable video platform, and that saw a rise in views and led to more users. As you can see, in the Google Videos search results, 3 out of the top 5 videos for my passion project, Leadership Stack, are from Facebook:

A lot of major brands have been making use of video content and taking a look at these would help you create quality videos, and also have an idea of what your audience would like to see in their videos. So, take advantage of social media and post your video content there as well.

Integrate them into the rest of your content

Since we’re on the topic of SEO, blog content has always been one of the best ways to drive organic traffic, and this also means that integrating video content can be something that would help both of your platforms gain more traffic. Adding videos add a new dimension to your content, allowing users to learn more about a certain topic, or even bridge different topics together. Blogs and videos allow more users to discover new websites, allowing more traffic and building more potential connections that can prove to be beneficial.

A lot of users want more interactivity in their content and adding videos to give them another dimension while reading. For example, reading a video game review article also has a link to a review video, allowing you to get to analyze the topic from a different perspective. Along with optimizing the user experience, you would also be able more views to your videos, along with bringing in traffic for your articles.

Key Takeaway

Video content has gone a long way since its start and is now one of the biggest platforms used by millions of people around the world. This is why it’s important for you to ensure that you are taking advantage of its popularity. With the help of the definitions and steps above, you would be able to optimize your videos and skyrocket your growth to new heights.

If you have questions and inquiries about video content or SEO, leave a comment below, and let’s talk.