Five Essential Video SEO Tips and Techniques

You've made some fantastic videos to support your company; now you just need the world to find them. Considering that search is the main method people use to discover new content, you can't afford to be without a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. If search engines can tell precisely what your videos are about, they'll send more people to you.

Here are five simple tips you can implement right away. Monitor your search engine referrals to see the difference.

1. Keep Your Page Light
Why does it matter how long your page takes to load? Because search engines send people to quicker loading sites first. You should struggle to keep all your web pages as light as possible, but it's especially important with video pages that are often be slow to load. Shaving off 10 or 15k might mean the difference between a front-page ranking and one much lower down.

2. Think About the Title
When your video comes up in list of search engine results, you've got about three seconds to convince the reader to click your link instead of someone else's. You do that with the page title. Create a title for each page that clearly and concisely tells what that video is all about. Use keywords that refer to your main subject, and think about what that video has that the others don't.

3. Surround Your Video
Search engines don't just look at the video on your page when creating rankings; they look at the other content on that page, as well. All the data on the page tells the search engine what the focus of the content is and how targeted that page is.

4. Remember Metadata
Meta tags exist purely so that you can tell search engines what your video is all about. While it's the easiest way to improve your ranking, they're often neglected. Write fresh keywords for each video and use specific, focused choices. You tags should repeat information in your page title and video title.

5. Load up the URL
Your video's URL is another place where search engines get information. Instead of using generic terms or numbers in the page address, use targeted terms that relate to the video. Put only one video on each page, so that search engines can tell exactly what's at each location.

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net