Get A Google Advantage With Online Video Marketing

By Author: david bryan
Total Articles: 18
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There are two important facts to consider when thinking about online video marketing. Firstly, few companies do it. Secondly, Google loves it. These two facts add up to an exciting opportunity for businesses to develop an SEO advantage by including web video as part of their overall marketing strategy.

Google’s recent changes to the way it rates websites has undoubtedly favoured sites with video content. This is not change for changes sake, but reflects what Google believes its customers are looking for when they search online. The growth in YouTube alone points to the fact that users like to watch video – especially in preference to pages upon pages of text that websites have traditionally offered.

Even websites that score poorly overall in Google indexing can achieve page 1 ranking with optimised web video. As always, with any website content, there are two parts which need to be carried out correctly. The first is the web video content and we have written elsewhere about how to create or curate web video content. It’s equally as important to make sure all web video is optimised fully.

Briefly here ...
... are 3 simple steps to start achieving this:

1 - Submit to YouTube

Harnessing the power of YouTube makes sense, especially for smaller organisations.You can be sure that Google will index the content, and that will help with getting your brand recognised – but it won’t necessarily drive traffic to the site so you will need further optimisation to maximise your online video marketing.

2 - Create a video sitemap

Another of Google’s Webmaster Tools, it is specifically designed to support video content and offers a step-by-step guide to best practice and how to submit a video sitemap. Don’t assume that because you have submitted a sitemap for your website that video content will also be indexed. Better to be SEO safe than sorry, so use the video sitemap for all web videos.

3 - Titles and tags

As with traditional SEO, using the correct keywords within video titles and descriptions will help get your web video seen. ‘Correct’ here means keywords are related to the web video content and are related to [perhaps even the same as] the keywords on the website page where the video is placed.

As with traditional SEO, long-tail keywords can help get the video content on to page 1 of Google. Users are not searching any differently; they are just seeing results offered differently – with web video often at the top of the rankings. Make sure keyword-rich descriptions are also used when annotating the content or in ALT tags on your website.

Hopefully these three steps will show you the importance of SEO for online video marketing and how it can be done relatively easily. However, professional and cost-effective help is always available to help you turn your web video into a commercial advantage.