It’s the iPad versus the Tab, the Nook versus the Kindle, the iPhone versus the Droid. Everyone’s got competition, just like you. You’re competing locally, and depending on your business, you’re also competing regionally, nationally or globally. What does it take to win the epic battle for consumer loyalty and market share dominance? Aside from offering the most quality level service or product, you must achieve market visibility. If your audience has no idea that you exist, how can they visit your institution, phone your hotline or send you a donation? Take advantage of search engines’ tendency toward blended search performance and incorporate optimized video into your web content, improving your visibility two-fold!
making the good, better
Adding video to your website automatically increases the likelihood of your customers finding you while surfing the web. However, there are certain video-specific search engine optimization strategies you can employ that will improve your chances even further. With the amount of both good and bad video content populating the World Wide Web, take action now to make sure your business’ valuable, need-to-know informative web videos come out on top.
7 keys to visibility success
- Find Keywords that Count – Zeroing in on your website’s most valuable keywords is a basic must-do when embarking upon any search engine optimization or search engine marketing mission. It is no different with video. Research terms that organically garner hits and originate searches. Find your top ones and be ready to put them to work.
- Include Mega Meta Info – Meta tags may not be visible to the average consumer, but Google sees what they do not: an information-rich piece of somewhat rare content nestled within your website. The comparative uncommonness of video’s content format on the Internet coupled with the even more infrequent incorporation of video-specific, well-researched meta tags provide your web video the extra SEO oomph to take it to the top of the search results.
- Tantalize with Titles & Tags – Keep your titles and tags relevant and interesting. Remember, you’re selling your web video to Internet searchers. Titles, tags and descriptions are important motivators for customers to immerse themselves in your content…or to search on. Just as with all your site’s web content keep your descriptors appropriate to avoid misleading and angering website visitors and video viewers.
- Pick the Perfect Picture – People are visual creatures. This is why video works well as an information delivery source. Capture your site visitors’ interest from the get-go by picking a video thumbnail that intrigues them and pulls them into your content, right from their search page first-look.
- Situate Your Sitemap – Anchoring your video with imbedded URL, RSS feed or sitemap origins is particularly important when posting to a third party network, such as Facebook or YouTube. Help viewers find their way back to exactly where that amazing video content came from: YOU.
- Establish an Effective Viewing Environment – Once you go through the trouble to increase the searchability of your site’s web videos, take care not to neglect your page’s text content. Ensure that your other content remains keyword-rich and relevant to achieve the best results possible.
- Derail Disappointment – Your video should contribute to your site or organization’s overall message and purpose. Apply basic quality standards to your video and structure all videos to run no longer than a few minutes whenever possible, keeping audiences both informed and interested.
the big pay off
While taking these extra steps to optimize your web videos may seem a burden, they prove effective in achieving real end results. Make sure to incorporate all SEO elements thoroughly and with care, either on your own or with help from an experienced web marketing team, well-versed in the art of SEO. Once you slay your competition, conquering the search results page on Google, bing! and YouTube, you will agree – the work was worth the pay off.