SEO Video Marketing: How You Can Utilize Video To Increase Your Brand Traffic

In this synchronized, step by step guide, our Guest Writer and SEO Video Marketing expert, Torrey Tayenaka provides 6 practical, easy-to-follow tips for creating effective videos that convert!

For most business owners, video marketing is essential to their marketing strategy.

And for a good reason:

Studies have shown that including a video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by as much as 80%!

But while many businesses use video to reach new customers and promote their brand, they’re not always using it in the most effective way possible. In particular, many companies are not taking advantage of the video’s most powerful marketing capability: SEO.

There are several ways to optimize your videos for SEO. Done properly, this can help you get the most out of your video marketing efforts by optimizing your videos for search engines.

What is SEO Video Marketing?

You may have heard of SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

It’s a process by which businesses make sure their website appears as the top result in search engine queries. It’s a complex and ever-changing field, but the basics are this: by using the right keywords, structuring your website in a certain way, and building backlinks, you can improve your website’s ranking on search engines. This means more people will see your website when searching for relevant terms. 

SEO Video Marketing is a specialized form of SEO that deals with optimizing videos for discovery on search engines. Like traditional SEO, the goal is to appear as the top result in relevant searches.

3 Key Benefits of SEO Video Marketing

If you’re not using video as part of your SEO strategy, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Online video is incredibly popular—and it’s only going to become more so in the years to come. Moreover, video is a highly effective way to improve your SEO.

Here’s a closer look at the main benefits of SEO video marketing.

#1. SEO and Video Go Hand-in-Hand

One of the most important things to remember about SEO is that it’s not about gaming the system. It’s about creating content that people will want to watch or read. That’s where video comes in. When you create high-quality, informative videos, you’re more likely to attract viewers—which will, in turn, improve your SEO.

#2. Video Is Incredibly Popular

There’s no denying that people love watching videos online. In fact, studies have shown that people are far more likely to watch a video than reading text—even if that text is on the same page as the video. And when you consider that YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world, it’s clear that video should be a crucial part of your SEO strategy.

#3. Video Helps You Rank Higher in Search Results

Because people are far more likely to watch a video than read text, Google and other search engines now prefer websites with videos. This means that if you want your website to rank higher in search results, you need to include videos.

Videos also help you stay ahead of the competition. If two websites are equally relevant for a given search query, but one has a video, and the other doesn’t, the website with the video is more likely to show up first in the search engine result pages (SERPS).

SEO Video Marketing – Tips for Creating Effective Videos That Convert

Creating a successful video doesn’t have to be complicated, but you should keep a few things in mind to ensure your videos are effective. Here are some tips:

#1. Make Sure Your Videos are High-Quality and Informative

Most people have short attention spans these days, so it’s important to keep your videos on the shorter side. A good rule of thumb is to aim for 2 minutes or less. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing viewers before you’ve had a chance to make your point.

In addition to being short, your video should be visually appealing if you want people to watch it all through. Use high-quality images and footage, and consider adding graphics or animation to break up the monotony of a talking head video. 

It’s not enough to just throw together some images and footage; you also need a well-written script that keeps viewers engaged from beginning to end. Write in a clear, concise style and focus on delivering useful and interesting information. 

#2. Write a Catchy Headline and Description for Your Video

When you’re trying to get people to watch your video, the headline and description are extremely important. You have a very short amount of text to make a good impression and persuade someone to click on your video.

Your headline is the first thing people will see, so you want to make sure it’s eye-catching and relevant to your video. A good headline will be between 6-12 words long and will address what the viewer can expect from watching your video. It should also include relevant keywords to your video so that people can find it more easily when searching for something online. 

Your description should be around 250 characters long, and it should elaborate on what viewers can expect from watching your video. You want to hook the viewer in and persuade them to watch your video by giving them a taste of what they’ll see.

#3. Add Annotations and Tags to Your Videos

By adding annotations and tags to your videos, you can give them a boost in the search rankings, making them more likely to be seen by potential customers or clients.

Annotations are small pieces of text that appear on top of your video. They can be used to provide links to other videos or websites and give viewers additional information about the video they’re watching. To add an annotation to your video, simply click on the “Edit” button below the video and then select “Annotations.” From there, you can choose where you want the annotation to appear and what text you want it to display. 

Tags are small pieces of text that help describe your video. They are like keywords, and they can be used to help people find your video when they search for topics related to it. To add tags to your video, click on the “Edit” button below the video and then select “Info & Settings.” Under “Basic Info,” you will see a section for “Tags.” Simply enter the keywords or phrases that you want to use as tags for your video. 

SEO Video Marketing – More Tips for Creating Effective Videos That Convert

Here are the remaining 3 tips for increasing brand traffic through effective SEO video marketing.

#4. Share Your Videos on Social Media and Other Channels

When you share a video on social media or another channel, you’re essentially increasing the number of links to your website. The more links you have, the higher your ranking will be. This is because search engines view links as votes of confidence. The more links you have, the more confident they are that your website is relevant and trustworthy.

Additionally, sharing videos can help improve click-through rates (CTRs). CTR is a metric that measures how often people who see your website link actually click on it. The higher your CTR, the better. This is because it tells search engines that people find your website useful and relevant.

Sharing videos can also increase the amount of time people spend on your website. Time on site is another metric that search engines take into account when determining rankings. The longer someone spends on your website, the more likely they will find what they were looking for. And the more likely it is that they’ll come back in the future.

#5. Use Video Sitemaps

A video sitemap is an XML file that contains information about your videos, such as the URL, thumbnail image, length, and title. This information helps search engines index your videos so that they can be found more easily.

To create a video sitemap, you will need to use a tool like XML-Sitemaps.com. Once you’ve generated the sitemap, you will need to upload it to your website and submit it to Google through the Google Search Console.

Video sitemaps are not required, but they can be helpful, especially if your videos are not getting indexed by search engines.

#6. Use Transcripts for Your Videos

A transcript is a written record of the spoken word in a video. They can be used to provide closed captioning for your videos or to provide text that can be indexed by search engines.

Transcripts can be helpful for two reasons. First, they make your videos more accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Second, they provide text that can be indexed by search engines, which can help your videos rank higher in the search results.

To add a transcript to your video, click on the “Edit” button below the video and then select “Captions.” From there, you can upload a file containing the transcript of your video. Alternatively, you can use a service like Rev.com to transcribe your videos. 

Video Marketing Means More Revenue

Video marketing is a great way to increase traffic to your website and generate leads. By following the tips in this guide, you can create optimized videos for SEO, which will help you achieve your marketing goals.