video

According to a report published by YouTube, there are about 6 billion hours of video that is published on the platform every month. And, that’s just one video-sharing platform.

There’s no denying that video is an integral part of every digital marketing strategy, and arguably one of the best ways to deliver a message to your audience. But, how can you get your video to stand out from the rest of the crowd and rank on search engines and video-sharing platforms like YouTube?

Indeed, video SEO is not the same as optimizing websites for search engines; however, there are multiple similarities. Moreover, as more marketers realize the potential of videos and the competition becoming fierce, the entire process of ranking videos has changed drastically.

Hence, in this article, we have created the ultimate guide with the list of activities you should conduct to ensure your video achieves ranking success in 2020:

Tip #1: Engaging Your Users = High Rankings

When YouTube first launched, the algorithm made use of views to determine which videos to rank. But, that was back when videos weren’t given that much importance. Today, multiple marketers make use of grey-hat techniques like click farms, which were meant for racking up millions of fake clicks. A couple of years ago, to battle such tactics, YouTube changed its ranking policy.

While views were still a ranking factor, it was coupled with the following engagement metrics as well:

  • Number of seconds viewed
  • Comments
  • Likes
  • Social shares

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Hence, you need to ensure that your video can garner high engagement with its viewers if you want to see your video in the top three ranking spots. Hence, instead of simply pumping out high-quantity videos, focus on creating quality and content-rich videos that are sure to drive user engagement.

Tip #2: Ensure Your Video Is ‘Readable’

People are continually browsing content on their phones, be it on the train, during a quick break at work, or even for a few minutes before they sleep. In such times, it’s not always feasible to watch videos with a high volume as it may disturb other people around. Due to this, it’s highly recommended to provide a video transcript. It displays captions alongside the video to ensure viewers can understand and view the video without causing any disturbance.

Moreover, besides being a great added benefit for users, video transcripts will also get you a couple of brownie points with the search engine algorithms as it provides more content for the search bots to understand what the video is about.

 

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Tip #3: Swipe Right ONLY To The Right Platforms

With the rise in video marketing, YouTube is not the only popular video-sharing platform. Websites like Dailymotion, Vimeo, etc., have improved their services to match YouTube and have quickly gathered a considerable following and subscription rate.

Due to this, you need to be extra careful about what you want to achieve with the help of video marketing while choosing which hosting platform will be the best for you. For example, if you’re not concerned about getting traffic to your website and are more focused on spreading brand awareness, then Vimeo and YouTube are the perfect platforms for you. This is because most of the traffic goes directly to the platform’s website, instead of your own.

Hence, it’s important to identify your goal before choosing which platform you want to publish and market your videos on.

Tip #4: Social Media Can Make Or Break Your Video

No one likes to see outdated, irrelevant information displayed by Google. As the company strives to provide the best services to its users, it makes use of social signals to identify the consumer. If people are talking about something on social media related to your industry, then your video is relevant and starts ranking. Hence, one of the best ways to get into the top positions is the share the link of the video across social media using the following tactics:

Auto-sync the YouTube channel with my Google+, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Every time a new video is published, share the link on three platforms

Post to LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+ groups. Social media groups are a fantastic way to get likes, shares, +1’s, etc.

Tip #5: Don’t Forget Link Building

While basic optimization might work wonders on some keywords, achieving ranking for your video for high competition keywords can be a task. Hence, it’s recommended to go above and beyond by building links to your video URL and embedding the HTML link of your video in other websites. You can use the platforms given below to add links:

  • Blogs
  • Web 2.0s (.Wordpress, .Weebly, etc)
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • Email signatures

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Ranking Hack #6: Just The Video Won’t Do It, Optimize Your Channel Too

With many famous YouTubers, as well as multiple fake profiles, being part of the video-sharing platforms, users have become extremely cautious of which accounts they want to interact with. Wouldn’t an account without any profile image, headers, description and links seem unreliable and fake to you?

By optimizing your channel, not only will you be more appealing to users, but search engines as well. Below certain recommendations are provided which you should follow while optimizing your channel:

  • Add links to all of your social media pages and website.
  • Add channel images. Not only does it help users identify with your content, but YouTube as well.
  • Subscribe to similar channels. Remember when you were a kid, and your friend got in caught stealing something, but you got punished too
  • Add a long description; make sure to add a ton of synonym keywords.

Ready, Set, Optimize

Videos have earned its spot as one of the most prominent strategies for digital marketing. So, all you need to do is simply following these steps while optimizing your videos and rest assured, your videos will rank! So, ready, set, optimize!

Arvind Patil is a SEO and Content Strategist at SRV Media, a digital agency. He enjoys performing SEO analysis while creating content strategies that connect brands with their target audience. When he is not busy analyzing digital marketing trends, he prefers traveling. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter

Video marketing stock photo by one photo/Shutterstock