Yes, Virginia, Search Engine Optimization is Necessary for Marketing Videos
Grant Crowell, a respected analyst and video SEO expert for REELSeo.com, reports that "38% of users who searched Google are served video in Universal search engine results."
Search engine optimization is critical if you want to achieve maximum results from your video content.
There are many ways to optimize your videos:
- Thumbnail optimization;
- Title optimization;
- Include keyword rich, relevant text in web pages adjacent to the video and in captions;
- Get quality links from websites to your videos;
- Create a video sitemap and submit it to search engines;
- Include links and allow URL crawls in your robots.txt file to your video sitemap..
Thumbnail SEO Tips
- Use high-quality thumbnail images.
- Choose your thumbnails - do not automatically go with what a video publisher chooses for you. (YouTube grabs an image from the middle of the video, and two other random images.)
- Whenever possible include a face or image of a person in your thumbnails (if your video is about animals, choose a winning shot of the animal).
