Top 10 Tips for Video Search Optimization
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All have heard about the online video phenomenon that is hitting the internet. Viewers by the millions are going online to upload and watch online video content each day. Often, videos are a more effective way to convey an advertiser’s message than typical offline advertising. And because video is becoming so mainstream, the cost to create online video content is extremely low and affordable for almost anyone. Online video has seen massive improvements in the past 2 years with regard to broadband connectivity, streaming, etc… Keeping in mind the vast popularity of online video as a method of internet marketing, it is important to learn the techniques most effective for optimizing your video for search engines.
1) It is recommended that you create and submit a transcript for users and the search engines, add a transcript to each video file you’ve uploaded via your Video Status page. Create a Keyword Rich Title for your Transcript; include a brief introductory paragraph/synopsis that describes the subject matter of your transcript (and video) and be sure to publish your transcript.
2) Make sure to include the keyword that you are targeting visitors for. Most often users will use the word “video” in conjunction with their search if searching for videos via the search engines. Therefore, it is important to use the word “video in your title, description, meta tags, and any other on-page text that you include with your video.
3) Search engine crawlers rely a lot on the link texts to figure out what the video is all about as they are not capable to figure out the contents of the video otherwise. Therefore it is advisable to get as many back links as possible for your video.
4) Video sitemaps are a great way for you to tell the search engines where all of your video content resides. With video sitemaps, you make it much easier for search engines to discover and index your online video in a rapid manner.
5) It is very difficult for the web crawlers of any search engine to crawl into the video contents inside flash players so they usually prefer to stay away from such files. It is therefore advisable not to use such kind of file formats which discourages the web crawlers.
6) Create search engine friendly keyword URLs for your video pages. To do this, you can use mod-rewrite function or htaccess file so that the URLs are freely assessable and readable by the search engines.
7) Various video search engines use to capture thumbnails of your in different manner. Some of them take the first frame of your video, while others try to take from the middle or end. It is better to experiment with each site individually to make sure they are displaying the right thumbnail for your video. A video thumbnail is always crucial when it comes to decide for a viewer which video to watch.
If you are hosting videos on your own site, use the sitemap that we mentioned earlier and keep your videos all in the same directory folder so that search engines can more easily locate all the videos you are publishing.
Beside the above mentioned points there are few more points relevant for the optimization:
9) Always make sure viewers are searching for your targeted keywords regularly. If not, try to find the closest related keywords being searched.
10) Enable ratings, reviews, comments, and feedback on your videos. Research shows that allowing users to provide feedback results in greater views for your video in addition to the fact that users who provide feedback tend to be those users that act.
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Tags: Marketing