Video Optimization For Search Engines

A well optimized video has more chances of performing well over the long run. With mountainous number of videos being uploaded every minute into the internet, it is important to leverage every single optimization factor if your video must make it to the fighting challenges.

With 100 hours of videos being uploaded into YouTube per 60 seconds, it makes every sense of being highly suggestive on why you must create and publish video content apart from textual.  Here are a few optimization tips to empower your videos to achieve high number of views by enabling and increasing its chances of ranking high on search engines.

1. Search Friendly Title

There is less amount of readable content in videos for the search engines. For this reason, most emphasis must be laid on creating a keyword rich SEO friendly title that is intriguing and catchy for the users just as well.

2. Quality Content

Can’t reiterate enough that content is king. The same rule applies in the case of videos just as well. The video must carry unique and compelling content. For increased views, spread of the word and leverage viral potential, the content must instill interest and be loved by the users.

3. Video Description

Like mentioned earlier, search engines rely on textual content to comprehend what your video is about. For this reason, it is important to provide descriptive content in context around the video. You could provide overview of the video content, transcription of the video etc to achieve this. In the case of YouTube, it has the provision of adding a description parameter to every video uploaded.

A sample Youtube video while on editing the details and how it appears to the public.

4. Social Enabled

Social ratings, social bookmarks and shares are a contributing factor in video rankings. Allow users to rate, share and comment on the videos. Apart from this generating social activity which correlates with search rankings, it also creates content in context of the video.

5. Watch Time

Video search engine giant YouTube is no longer considering the total video views alone to decide its listing criteria. This negates the possibility of scaling up the view counts by purchasing fake views. What it has now come to consider primarily is the ‘watch time’, which is a metric that calculates the overall viewing time per session. The algorithm suggests and prioritizes videos based on the metric, giving less emphasis on the total clicks or views as such. This simply solidifies the necessity for intriguing, useful and unique content.

6. Video Length

It is of utmost importance to keep videos as reasonably short as possible. People tend to get bored and stray away from videos that are too lengthy. This will also discount on the ‘watch time’ metric we already discussed. Of course, certain exceptions may necessitate lengthy videos such as a demo or a tutorial etc. In such cases it is important to keep the videos engaging throughout to encourage viewership.

7. Publicize

In the end, you need to spread the word out before expecting the users to. Leverage every channel possible to promote your video content. Publish them on video sharing sites, provide video embedding options for those interested to use your video on their sites, watermark videos so they carry brand and origin wherever they are put up, link to them through blogs, articles etc.

These were some of the most essential factors to consider in scaling up video search rankings and user interest, which when utilized effectively can drive large number of video views.