Posted on December 30th, 2009Does this scenario sound familiar?
Rita was bursting with excitement when she finished her first official web video. She imagined droves of people happily watching her video and envisioned them rushing to her website to make multiple orders of her new product. Sadly, three weeks later, Rita’s video seemed to be non-existent in the search engines. The video stats revealed that it had only received five views and two of them were hers!
What happened? Aren’t videos supposed to be ranked higher by Google? You hear people raving all the time about how using web video has changed their life (and their wallet). But what is it that those raving fans forgot to mention?
Using web video to get better search engine ranking is very much like using a website for the same purpose. You have to know the rules plus have a strategy that works well for your product and your niche. The web video strategy for a photographer will be very different than the strategy employed by a fitness expert. Let’s take a look at a few ways to effectively use web video to raise your search engine ranking.
Know Your Market – Have a clear understanding of why people come to your site or tune in to your videos. When one local chef complained that her video viewership was low, a quick look at her video revealed that she had missed her cue. She was not giving her audience what they wanted – she was lecturing on all of her videos instead of cooking!
Develop Keyword-Rich Video Titles – Short, keyword-rich video titles will go a long way in boosting your ranking. A recent Google search using the keyword phrase “singing lessons” gave links to two video clips among the top ten search results. The video titles were very simple but also very keyword rich. One video result included the words “singing lessons” in the title. The second result included the words “learn to sing better” in the title. They also kept in mind that some video submission sites require titles to be 60 characters or less.
Develop Keyword-Rich Descriptions – Great video marketers are excellent at getting their point across with a few descriptive words. Many submission sites require that the video description be 200 characters or less. A good rule of thumb for a business video is that a viewer should be able to read your full video description in about 30-45 seconds. Let your video do the rest of the work. If you tend to be long-winded or just need some practice on saying a lot with a little, read an old classic like “How to Get Your Point Across in 30-Seconds or Less” by Milo O. Frank.
Learn What the Search Engines are Thirsty For – Search engines tend to favor fresh, new content – especially newer media formats. When it gets what it’s thirsty for, the result is usually fast indexing and top ranking on the search results page for your keywords. A good example of this is with podcasts. If your niche is not yet inundated with podcasters, placing your video on a podcast site could get you a top ranking that will last much longer than one placed on a typical video submission site.
Web video is an effective way to reach your market and improve your search engine ranking. It will continue its rapid gain in popularity as more consumer look at web video before making their buying decision.