I have to admit not that long ago, I was once the sort of type who would just upload a video to YouTube and call it a day. Fortunately, a couple of video pro friends of mine showed me that it’s worth it to your brand if you consider the impact of incorporating VSEO – that’s right, VSEO, not just SEO – or, video search engine optimization.
By taking a few strategic steps to maximize your VSEO, your personal brand might be that much better off. Like so:
Let’s start with keywords.
When you take a closer look at the keywords that are being searched for at a high volume and have relevance to you, you can incorporate these keywords into descriptions of your video.
Jack Lane, of Chicago-based Lane Media & Productions, works with clients to help address this very issue.
“We insert specific keywords into the scripts we write for clients,” Lane says. “After the video is produced, we create video site maps, which are then uploaded to the client’s service and submitted to major search engines.”
Lane explains that this is really the best way for a search engine to index the content within the video, helping the company move up in the rankings.
“As they should, companies are concentrating on finding the right mix of creative talent, production expertise, web compression techniques and affordability. But they can’t forget about how video SEO contributes to successful online marketing. That matters as much as anything.”
By the way, don’t forget the importance of using relevant keywords in the title of your video, too, and tagging your video with those phrases.
How do you measure it successfully?
By now, you’ve been told enough times the importance of making your content engaging — but analyzing how meaningful that content is to the audience can be tricky. Play count is a factor but…
“Videos with 1,000 hits are not going to bring huge SEO results,” says Remsy Atassi, of ARU Chicago. “That said, the most effective projects I have worked on put a large emphasis in sharing strategies. Sharing across multiple branded channels maximizes your play counts, increases your presence in search engines and lends credibility to your message.”
Beyond tagging the video, Atassi encourages his clients to also explore social media channels, such as Facebook and Twitter, for reposting links back to the video.
“This increases the relevancy of what we produce,” he says. “Because our content must often satisfy the demand of multiple viewing formats and types of audience.”
Ask them to watch — and rate.
When search engines see a video that has high ratings and a large volume of comments, it can place a higher value on your search results. Unfortunately, most people just say, “Check out our newest video!” and hope others like it enough to share it. Don’t leave things to chance; spell it out for them. When you promote your video to an audience, encourage viewers to rate the video too. The higher quality content, the higher the rating. And the higher the rating, the more likely it’s a video that gets viewed, commented on and shared.
The best-case scenario
In my book, the only thing more flattering than sharing a video is embedding it onto a website. A video that’s embedded on other sites goes a long way with search engines as well. So beyond embedding the video onto your own site and enabling social media sharing, make sure users can embed your video code into their sites. Then, track the number of times that video gets embedded on those other sites to get a continued measure of your video’s influence.
With an understanding of how the video platform fits into your overall brand strategy, you’ll see VSEO as a powerful tool for sharing content, engaging your audience and building your personal brand better than ever.
