How to optimize your videos Top practices, tips, &

If a photo is worth 1,000 words, how much is a video worth? For search engines, the answer is "a lots."

SEO, also known as search engine optimization or SEO is the method of increasing your content's visibility for the search engines, such as Google, Bing, and other search engines.

In the competitive sphere of SEO for video providing the correct amount of information to search engines is critical in helping people find and connect to the content you've worked so hard to create.

Let's go behind the oft-opaque curtain of SEO, so more eyes can happily stumble upon your next video.

Best SEO techniques and video tips for SEO. practices

1. Be intentional regarding your title

The title is usually the text at the top which appears in search results. While it's wonderful to have a unique and memorable title of your film, it's also important to keep your title specific by with keywords. The more descriptive and broad your title is and the more likely it is that your video will be found when people search for those keywords.

Search results typically are cut off around 65 characters, so ensure that you load your title with the most important keywords.

2. Leverage what other people are searching for

If you're looking for new audiences to see your film it is sensible to present it in terms that people are searching for.

Even though the film was first released over a decade ago "Hayako" is still able to hold the coveted and competitive position on the first page of search results on Google, proving the power of video titles optimized for search.

That being said, it's important not to stuff irrelevant keywords in your video's title just for the sake of appearing in a variety of searches. (Pro-tip This rarely succeeds). If your title and description aren't accurate enough to reflect the content of the videos, then search engines could be penalized.

What are the average lengths of video descriptions?

• YouTube The description field can be as long as 1,000 characters.
• The characters can include up to five hundred characters
• Google is able to reduce the description of any video (or article) at around 155-160 characters

3. Don't undervalue the importance of a well-written description for SEO of videos

It is this text "blurb" that is likely to appear in search results below your name. Your description should begin with an opening line that grabs your audience's attention instantly remembering that only the first 110 characters, or more, will show before the description gets truncated in search results.

After the initial 100 to 200 characters, use the rest of the description to tell viewers about the video with greater detail. Give credit to your crew and cast, note the equipment you used to shoot and edit the film and mention any other essential elements of your film.

Descriptions are also ideal for putting links to your social media sites or websites. Although these links may not improve the search results Your collaborators, viewers, and fans can use this information to follow your activities on different channels.

Not a copywriter? That's okay. The worst kind of description is one that is not complete. Make sure you convey the most important ideas about the video before adding any important phrases that you think the viewers are looking for.

4. Embed video on your site for additional benefit

It's not a good idea to overload a landing page by putting up too many videos because Google will not know which is most valuable among them all to show. So when you're embedding a beautiful video onto your site, make sure to stick with one for each page.

Page placement of your video is also an important factor for how search engines will crawl your website. Ideally, the video will be close to the top of the page.

Video clips that appear "below the fold" just like results from search appearing on the second page of Google is often not thought about , which is not something you want when you're trying to get more reach.

5. Include a video transcript

Video transcription is a crucial element of video SEO. It gives Google more information about your video content, thus improving your chance of appearing on the first page of search results.

Google can access the bytes from the video to comprehend the content in your video, including the spoken words. But, if you've recorded the speech manually in your video, providing an audio transcript could assist search engines to understand the spoken words more precisely. If in doubt, give more context rather than the bare minimum.

Video transcripts also allow your content to be more usable, which is a constant the considerations of creators and artists who work in all areas.

6. You can nail your thumbnail

A stunning thumbnail is especially essential for mobile (whether you're using a mobile internet browser or an in-app) as well as the over-the-top (OTT) viewing, where your video's title and thumbnail is your main way of contacting potential viewers.

It is possible to include text on your thumbnail , or let the image speak for itself. We've seen both methods work well.

Its stunning colors and elegant, minimalist name overlay "Calbuco" offers a mesmerizing thumbnail that entices you to explore:

Sometimes, your thumbnail will require a little explanation to draw the attention of viewers, and that's acceptable. Add a subtitle to your thumbnail, and showcase your accomplishments in the film industry to raise curiosity:

A trend that we've observed is that color thumbnails tend to get better rate of click-through than black and white thumbnails. That being said, sometimes it's better to choose the more aesthetic option over the analytical choice.

The black and white combination can be just as eye-catching like color, particularly when your thumbnail captures the right timing in mid-action.

Beware of these common thumbnail errors:

• Blurry action shots
• Text that competes with the image, or is hard-to-read
• Image stretched, pinched or stretched
• There is no thumbnail

Your video SEO glossary

Here are a few terms of the SEO trade you might not have heard of:

 Algorithm

It's not like the Instagram or Facebook algorithms you hear so much about However, it is an ever-changing Google algorithm that decides what elements are necessary for a website to be qualified to be ranked. Consider factors such as importance to the search query, its usability, the quality of the information, etc.

Actually, Google search algorithms are an intricate web that was designed to make sure the most relevant results shoot into the top spot of page one.

 Crawl  

The act of Google "crawling" the site is simply how the search engine gathers data. The "crawler" perpetually navigates the web for new pages recording these pages as well as the content they have (including video!) to be used to create search results.

 Rich snippets

A rich snippet from a video is the thumbnail preview of the video that pops up in mobile and desktop Google search results. Every video hosted on .com we offer metadata that are appropriate to help your video preview be visible in Google and the other search engines.

Why do rich snippets matter? The organic results page is the lifeblood of many websites and companies, and these snippets provide a big leg up on standard listings.

They offer a compelling link to your video with either a static thumbnail or a the moving preview, which increases your organic click-through rate (CTR) and generates more viewers.

"SERP"

A shorthand that stands for "search engine result page." When you search on the internet for something Google will respond with SERP that answers your question.

 Data structure

Structured information(or microdata) is a common way to tell search engines how to index the content of a website. Through providing the appropriate set of structured data, allows your hosted videos to show up in search results in rich fragments.

Other important forms of structured data automatically provides that are crucial to SEO as well as social media marketing.

• Schema.org is a common set of definitions that define structured data. It is that is supported by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex
• Open Graph, Facebook's markup, is used to determine what info and images are automatically shown when a page is shared in a post
• Twitter cards are markups which pull in images, videos, as well as text. They display their contents as a "card" when a page is sent out via Twitter all over the world

To see all the video microdata that is automatically created by , just enter the URL of a YouTube video using Google's structured data testing tool.

You've officially dipped your toe into the vast ocean of SEO. Although the video SEO process is just one element of the overall marketing strategy for your videos The process isn't difficult for you to bring meaningful improvements to your content.

It's not a secret that marketing professionals must make use of video at every stage of the journey of a consumer, whether that's gaining exposure through sites like and Facebook for a more intimate connection with your brand, or embedding videos onto your website to inform customers and drive sales.

Still, simple steps -such as optimizing your title or writing a thoughtful summary -- could make a huge difference in getting the eyes of search engines on your content.