Optimizing Videos for Search

Now that Google has Universal Search, videos are becoming more important for search engine optimization. It’s important to think about the audience you want for the video when optimizing. Don’t just post a video to have one out there. If it isn’t relevant to your site or what you’re doing then all the SEO in the world can’t help you. However, if it is relevant here are some tips to help it rank higher in searches.

First and foremost use your keywords in the metadata – specifically the title and description tags. These keywords, just like in your other webpages, should be related to your product. You can also index each section of your video with http://www.veotag.com tags. This creates embedded tags for your videos that are indexed by major search engines like Google.

Another thing you’ll want to do is upload your video to portals and provide links back to your site. Remember to have the links come back to similar content. Some of the more popular portals include:
• YouTube
• Google Video
• Yahoo Video
• Netscape

Additionally, you’ll want to create appropriate tags for your video in these portals to help searches find it.

Try to watermark your video content. This is the technique where you add the option of “send to a friend” or something similar to the end of your video. If you can set up tracking for this it’s a great option. Also, offer the ability to embed your video on viewers’ own blogs or websites.

Add copy to the pages around your video to help the search engines. They still primarily use HTML content for indexing and ranking, so provide it to them.

Keep your videos short. Five minutes or less is a general rule of thumb. If you have a longer video consider segmenting it into appropriate pieces. Don’t forget to tag them accordingly!

Allow a rating system for your video and submit it to RSS and syndicate feeds. If it is a good video the power of the people will promote it. And that’s the most important thing – make your video interesting and enjoyable to watch and it will become higher ranked just like highly interesting webpages.

Strategies & Methods | seowhitehats | October 15, 2007