Every content creator wants their videos to be seen by as many people as possible, and optimizing video SEO is a great approach for making this happen. Your main goal is to reach a wider audience and get as many video views as possible from search engines like Google.
This involves optimizing your video content so that it ranks higher whenever someone searches for the topic your video is covering. Moreover, it also makes sure that your video is a better option instead of the competitors.
The real question is how do you get your videos to rank higher? We’ll dive deeper in this article to find out more.
Include topics that are searched for the most
If you’re making videos about topics that nobody is interested in, the chances of you getting many views are small. Topics that are searched for the most will also rank higher from the views they get.
The real question is how do you know which topics are people discussing the most? Well, we recommend that you use the keyword magic tool from Semrush. Otherwise, you can leverage the free keyword research tools as well.
In Semrush, you can simply type in keywords and the tool will show you popular search terms.
If the keyword you entered isn’t relating to the topic you want to cover, try to narrow it down. For example, if you are targeting an audience in the United States, and type the keyword “Trends”, you will get different results. The image below shows you an example.
By only mentioning one keyword, you might not get the results you want as it can cover much more topics than required, so it’s time to dive in further with long-tailed keywords.
Now, we are going to use ”2024 marketing trends”. You’ll now see that it’s more focused, and shows you the total number of keywords related. Also, the tool will show you how competitive the keyword is. In this case, you can see that the KD% has the orange color, which means that it’s quite competitive and will ask you for more references to stand out.
Furthermore, you have advanced features which allow you to see topics where videos will appear in search results, meaning that if you were to type the keyword “2024 marketing trends”, there will be videos that appear about this topic on search engines.
Create high-quality videos
Search engines will always rank high-quality videos higher, and let’s face it, technology has evolved so much that nobody will tolerate anything that is low-quality. By leveraging professional video production you can ensure that your content meets these high standards and expectations.
Whether you’re using traditional methods or an AI video generator, the formula for creating high-quality videos will depend on which niche you are part of.
For example, a marketer should focus on delivering value to their audience and solving problems on why customers should buy their product or service. A fitness trainer would need to show what kind of exercises you need to do and so on.
However, there’s much more to it than just that. There are three main key strategies you need to follow when creating your videos:
Each video that is something interesting is much more fun to watch. Before you publish your video, ask yourself if you were the viewer, what would you think of this video?
Use subtitles for video translations
There’s nothing wrong with offering video translations. It’s a great way to reach a wider audience and get your message across target audiences that speak other languages other than English.
When you choose which tool to use for your translations, you need to initially check which languages they are available in. For instance, if you want to translate your video to English subtitles,you need to make sure the translator you are using offers that option.
Nowadays, video content is automatically translated and can reach an accuracy of up to 99%. However, many modern tools are hiring translators to help them fix any mistakes that may happen with automatic subtitle translations. Native speakers always know more about which terms should be used and can help you figure everything out.
This also helps in making your videos more accessible to audiences with disabilities. 1.3 billion people suffer some sort of disability and subtitles solve a major problem for those that may suffer from hearing issues.
Subtitle translators help in saving time so you can easily upload your video, choosing the language you desire, and clicking the translate button. Not only are you breaking down language barriers, but you are allowing everyone to enjoy your content at the same time, improving the user experience and helping your videos rank higher on search engines by getting more views from a global audience.
Make your thumbnails persuasive to click on
A video thumbnail is what can draw a user’s attention. Optimized video thumbnails are what increase the view-through of videos by 15%. For example, if a user types in a keyword and gets a bunch of search results where your video is in there as well, your thumbnail will help you stand out if it’s persuasive enough.
The real question is how on Earth do you create a persuasive thumbnail that will make users click on your video? Here’s an example we managed to get from Sunny Lenarduzzi’s channel.
Source: Screenshot
You can clearly see that her thumbnail mentions something persuasive like “Monetize your knowledge”, “You can outsell the competition from day 1,”and so on. This makes viewers curious and encourages them to click on the video to clarify their curiosity.
Optimize video titles and descriptions
Your video’s title will appear alongside your video when search results are displayed. Search engines like Google will first scan your video’s title to see what topic you are trying to cover. It’s important to keep your video title below 60 characters. If your title is too long, it won’t entirely display and this isn’t something you want to happen.
Your title can serve as a call-to-action (CTA) in its own form. Try including titles that have numerical values or how to’s. For example, 5 ways to improve your conversions, how to 5x your sales, 10 must-have tools in marketing, etc.
Next to the video title, you also need to worry about your video description. Video descriptions are found just below your title on search engines. It’s best to keep your video descriptions below 120 characters since those above this limit might hurt your SEO results.
However, if you are marketing your videos on YouTube or other hosting platforms, it’s important to make your video descriptions longer and detailed. Your video descriptions will all depend on where you are uploading them.
Your YouTube’s video description will show the first characters so the best advice we can give you is to make sure that the first 120 characters sound persuasive. Here is an image below to show you what we mean.
Source: Screenshot
If you want to automate the video title and description, you can try top free tool like Content.Ai. This will help you to generate videos titles with perfect CTAs and SEO-optimized video descriptions faster.
Build backlinks to pages with videos
Building backlinks plays a huge role in how you rank on search engines like Google. Backlinks point from other sites to yours. This is a win for you since Google will see that other websites find your video content credible and valuable, making it worthy to link to.
The more links you have on your site, the more of a chance you’ll have to rank higher on Google. Building backlinks is done when you reach out to other websites in your industry to ask them to link back to your website.
It’s always important to note that before you contact any website, you should be persuasive enough to help them find out why they should link to you. The two questions to answer are:
The whole idea here is to show what they gain from you and why you are different from your competitors.
It’s now time to optimize your video SEO
That’s all you need to know about video SEO. Always choose a topic that is widely spoken about in your niche. Avoid creating low-quality videos since technology has advanced so far in this day and age, meaning that you’ll easily fall behind competitors.
Use subtitles to make sure you are reaching a global audience and that everyone gets the chance to enjoy your content. Other than that, focus on building backlinks to gain authority on search engines and include persuasive thumbnails to make your viewer interested in clicking on your video. Also, make sure that you also keep your title in the 60 character range, and make your video description interesting in the first 120 characters you write.
As AI-enhanced search engines like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and CoPilot become more prevalent, businesses can benefit from incorporating GEO service strategies. Generative engine optimization may help ensure your video content is not only optimized for traditional search but also accurately discovered and ranked by AI-driven platforms.
