So in my last search engine optimization article I talked about you have need a holistic search engine marketing approach. So this post will be about starting your internet video marketing campaign.
Let’s talk about why you should be doing video marketing. If YouTube was a standalone web site it would be the 2nd largest site in the world and video search accounts for one quarter of all search in the U.S. for Google.
So video optimization has become an important SEO function for the average online business owner. Here are some more stats:
- 13 hours of new videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute.
- 80 million videos are being watched every day.
- 200,000 new videos are uploaded daily.
Good news – lots of people watch videos. Bad news – the idea your video will go “viral” has become very difficult unless you really know what your doing.
Even more challenging is the fact that Google routinely chooses only a maximum of two videos to display on page one of the organic search results for most targeted keyword phrases. This means getting your video listed within the top results usually entails knocking an existing YouTube video result off the first page of the search engine results.
Ok, so that’s the challenge; now, here’s the reward…
The benefits of getting your YouTube video ranked well within Google’s organic search results can definitely lead to substantial benefits, including:
- Increased traffic to your website.
- A new Top 10 search ranking for a specific keyword.
- New incoming links directly from YouTube (even if they are NOFOLLOW).
- The real possibility of pushing a competitor off the first page of Google.
- The generation of new video subscribers to your video channel (if you have one).
So let’s talk Strategy:
#1 — Keep your YouTube video under 3 Minutes in Length.
YouTube specifically states that videos must be less than 10 minutes in length with a file size smaller than 100 MB. However, videos that rank well are typically much shorter and smaller than these limits. Currently, the average video on YouTube is about 2 minutes, 28 seconds.
The length of your chosen YouTube video is important for several optimization reasons, including:
- Shorter videos generate more views.
- More views means more popular videos.
- The more popular the video, the more comments and bookmarks are generated.
- Comments and bookmarks lead to incoming links.
- Incoming links lead to the generation of Google PageRank.
- Google PageRank results in a higher ranking video in organic results.
#2 — Optimize your Video Title with Target Keywords.
Sounds like a no brainer but as with ranking a regular web page in Google, the importance of the video title tag for organic ranking purposes can’t be overstated. The title tag on your target video should specifically reference your target keywords
#3 — Optimize your Video Description with Target Keywords.
Second to the title, using your YouTube video description field effectively is paramount to getting your video ranked well in Google. Fortunately, this is very simple to do:
- Include the focused keyword twice in the description
- Put the link of the site you want to promote at the beginning of the video description.
#4 — Use your Target Keywords as YouTube Video Tags.
This simple strategy is one that most YouTubers still don’t get. Your YouTube tags are the main way users query videos on YouTube. If you want to show up in YouTube for dogs or airplanes you must include these tags within your YouTube tags field.
These tags are also indexable as content on the page. Google does use them in algorithmic calculations when ranking videos organically.
When putting your tags into your video, make sure your targeted keyword phrase is entered first in the tags field. This increases the chances of your video being found by YouTube searchers who are looking for videos that match your tags. It also gives you that extra boost within Google that helps the video rank well.
#5 — Use your Website Name as your YouTube User Name.
This strategy will indirectly help your videos rank better in Google by more effectively cross-linking your main website with your YouTube video offerings
#6 — Generate Views, Comments, & Honors on your Videos.
Views are like votes on YouTube. The videos that generate the most views get featured more on YouTube, resulting in even more views. Increased views also lead to the generation of honors for your video, leading to even more notice. Here are examples of some of the more popular honors your video can generate:
- Most viewed video (day, week, month, all-time)
- Most viewed in a category video
- Most discussed video
- Most popular video
- Top favorite video
Increased views and honors also lead to the generation of comments by YouTube users.
On average, it takes 1000 views to generate one comment on YouTube. Comments are a sign of community interaction and help promote your videos. More comments on your video mean more community activity, generating more visits to view your video, resulting in higher popularity and, ultimately, better rankings.
A highly discussed thread is also more likely to be bookmarked by users. This is another metric that YouTube tracks on a video’s Statistics & Data screen. More comments lead to more bookmarks, leading to more visits and follow-up comments. Curiously though, this circular pattern is seldom leveraged as much by YouTube users as it should be.
Important Note: Don’t hesitate to edit out negative comments in your video or to turn off comments once you’ve generated a nice supportive collection.
Sounds great, right? So how do you generate views, honors, and comments on your videos; try the following:
- Link to the video from your site.
- Send it to your subscriber list on YouTube.
- Cross-promote it through your Facebook page, related forums, and other social media bookmarking accounts.
- Email the video link to interested parties.
Publicizing your YouTube video is paramount to achieving good rankings in organic search. The more people who see the video, the faster the video will become cached in the Google index—and the faster it will generate those critically important incoming links.
#7 — Embed your Video into Websites, Threads, and Blogs.
Embedding or pasting your video into your site, in blogs or through related forum threads is a great way to drive traffic and views to your video. Although embedded views are no longer used to calculate honors at YouTube, they aretracked and can be used to effectively publicize a new video to as wide an initial audience as possible.
Also, embedded videos show up as links on YouTube to your video. Referring back to our franchise opportunities video example, here is how that information appears under the Statistics & Data tab:
#8 — Build Links into your Video using Targeted Anchor Texts.
By far the most important factor in generating high-ranking Google organic results for your YouTube videos is targeted anchor text link building.
Building quality incoming links directly to your YouTube video using the specific keyword for which you want to rank is hands-down the most effective method for boosting relevancy within Google to generate those first page rankings. To best leverage your link building efforts for maximum effect, consider the following:
- Vary your anchor texts: You should generate links using your top keywords as anchor text of the targeted incoming link. This will ensure good rankings in both Google organic and Google video searches per our examples above.
- Seek out quality links: Try to achieve quality links from PR=3+ sites whenever possible. Use a combination of blogs, sites, and thread inventory that have reputable authority and a recent Google cache date. Be sure to link to the video from your own sites as well using targeted anchor text.
- Paid blog posts or links: Consider using a service to generate blog backlinks using your targeted anchor texts. Just remember that Google does not like these forms of paid links so be careful!
In summary, building quality backlinks to your videos is essential to generating Google PageRank quickly. Due to YouTube’s high PageRank (PR=9) home page score, most videos can easily score a PR=3 or higher by just having a few quality backlinks of their own. This means your video will rank better in Google in spite of the nofollow nature of YouTube videos (which means that no ‘link juice’ is passed directly to your video description site URL).
So start up your video cameras and get shooting those videos!
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