25 February 2013

SEO Search Engine Optimisation

Video Marketing Strategy And Your SEO Campaign

Whilst incorporating videos on your website can be educational and give your brand awareness, they can also positively affect your business’s SEO campaign.

The embedded video…

Once a video is uploaded onto YouTube it is ranked based on the keywords that are tagged on that page and by how many backlinks are connected with the video. Whereas, if the video is embedded into your actual website then search engines have no way of ranking it, as they have no way of comparing it with other embedded videos on other websites. This means that your embedded video has the same chance of showing up in SERP’s like any other!

Many people decide to upload videos onto YouTube so they will be ranked. The more activity and likes a video gets the higher it will be ranked in search engines. However, it is important to remember that doing this will eliminate any SEO value that the video previously had. Alternatively, you can prevent this from happening by embedding your video onto your website and then submitting a video sitemap to Google, where you will be able to add tags.

When creating an XML sitemap you can include tags that contain keywords to tell Google what your video is actually about. Doing this will help your video rank highly on SERP’s.

Embedded links…

Just like an image can be created that is a link, the same can be said for a video. The main issue is that most (if not all) videos need to be clicked to start, meaning that your video should be changed to an auto-start if you want to use your video to get clicks. These clicks are known as direct traffic; but remember that the link itself does have some SEO worth.

If you wish to use these videos to get clicks, there are two main ways in which this can be done;

1. Have the video auto-start and then when it comes to the end have the screen display “click here for…” so that the user can simply click on the video to be taken to a particular landing page.
2. Install an image with a link that sneakily looks like a video player. The user will then unknowingly click the video to start it, but then be taken to a landing page of your choice. In order to keep the user happy make sure that the landing page does in fact have the video on it, ready to be watched by them.

Adverts…

It may be an idea to include adverts at the beginning of your video; if you advertise your website’s address then you are increasing the chance of people entering that said address into Google. If they do, the result will be increased traffic, with the chance of more people wanting to link to you or share your video on social platforms such as Facebook or Twitter.

Web address…

It is possible to upload your video on other domains or social sites which have your web address included on the video (usually tucked away in the corner). If the user is impressed by the video there is an increased chance that they will visit your website to find out more.