Reader Question:
“Do you have any articles/advise/links related to promoting video in SERPs? Main questions – how does it work? Can you “SEO” videos embedded from other websites eg youtube etc.” Submitted by Nikesh, SpaAndPampering.com
Nikesh,
There is a lot of material on how videos increase your visibility in the search engines. Many video sites allow for a title and description for videos uploaded there which help with relevancy. They also allow you to link to your site in various ways, which allows Google to “read” the page your video is on, score it for keyword density, and find your link back to your site.
Titles of Videos Are Important!
Just as important as how you title your blog posts. Google loves to mix up their top 10 results with all kinds of media if you make it possible for them to do so. Making a proper title is crucial to this process.
Example:
This title, “Dog Training Tips for Bad Dogs,” would be better for SEO than this title: “Keep your dog off my lawn!”
While the second one might do better for the curiosity factor, the first title will do better in the engines for the main keyword: “dog training tips.”
Now, back up that great title with a great description. Something like this:
Dog training doesn’t have to drive you crazy. Follow these tips and you’ll find your bad dog behaving like he was trained by a professional dog trainer!
Note that you don’t have to put your main keyword together in a description. Google is now just wanting to know more and it will see the correlations with your title. Also note the supporting keywords like: trainer, trained, dog trainer in the description above.
If the example video above was described in this way and got some linkage from around the dog training niche, it would have a great chance of getting in the top 10 in Google for “Dog Training Tips” as a video result.
From that point people (and Google) can follow your link back to your site from wherever the particular video sites allow you to put your link. Say, from your profile which is linked to the video.
Tags Are Important!
Tagging your video properly with 4-5 keywords that support your video topic will land you on “tag result pages” on video sites for those terms. You can become a “suggested video” on those pages where people are searching for just your kind of video. Don’t spam with tags. 4-5 tags per video should do the job.
Embedded, 3rd Party Videos on Your Site
You’re going to have competition from the video creator on this one, but luckily, most people don’t know how to SEO their videos when they syndicate them. Sometimes you can get the jump on them by following the same guidelines above when you post 3rd party videos on your site.
Video SEO and Syndication Resources
- Traffic Geyser
- Top 50 Video Sites
- Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) Session
- VSEO Recap from same SES conference
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Jack,
I like your blog. Thanks putting up such great content.
I agree that having video would make you more visible since Google puts video on their top 10 search results. They also do the same for social networking sites like Squidoo and Hubpages.
All the best!
Regards,
Erwin Chua
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I love the concept of video in a blog. Does it matter whether the video is yours or someone else’s (YouTube, etc.)? Someone other than the original creator of the video may be better at marketing the content.
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John – not really. Sometimes the video creator will know their stuff and get in the top 10, but you can also score with their video on your site with other keywords they didn’t use to describe their video.
Thanks Jack, another great post, keywords and tags are really important @John, If you are using someone else’s video checkout the weighting of the video, how many people have watched it, commented on it and rated it. Google are all about social proof and if the Video you use has these elements too it will carry over to wherever you use it.
Thanks for the great reply Jack.
When you say describe 3rd party videos, do you mean general onsite stuff like metatags, htags or something more technical within the code of the video?
I’ve embedded some video on my site at http://www.spaandpampering.com/champneys-spa.html . Is that ever likely to have any SEO value? Any feedback would be great.
I generally think that as connection speeds keep increasing webdevelopers will start to use video with more flair and functional use.
Cheers guys
Nikesh – that’s more like an ad to me. The trick is to find video (or shoot video) that is informative to attract viewers. Like how a certain kind of massage is the most sought after and how it’s done. Then, of course, they are on your site where your spa specializes in that type of massage. The text you have around the video isn’t getting this job done. It is like testimonials, so that, combined with the video, the page looks more commercial than informative.
So it is neither SEO’d nor appealing to people looking for certain kinds of information. You’d reserve a page like this for someone who is actually at the point of choosing between your spa and one down the street. To get them to that point you have to have won them over with some content they feel like they are getting value from first.
Thanks for the great reply.
I supposed (wrongly) that if someone finds the page they are wanting to buy a spa day.
Maybe making a page (with video) for each of the top 10 popular massages and how people should prepare and what to expect would be more informative. Then link to spa venues that give those massages.
Am i heading in the right direction?
Nikesh – absolutely! That would be a perfect campaign to try out and see what happens. I am betting it nets you a lot more traffic.
The only change I would make is this: Make your main page of the top 10 massages, but only as an index with some teaser text next to a small picture. Name of massage, text on why it is so popular (just 100 words or less), and a link (make the name of the massage the link to that massage style page) to a separate page for EACH type so you can optimize each type of massage by itself.
People looking for info on a particular kind will be more likely to land on a search result you’ve gained by isolating each massage style on a separate page while visitors to your main site can check out your link to the top 10 page that links to all of them.
I totally understand! I’ll give that a go and see what happens.
Thanks for the great answers throughtout!
Hi Jack:
That’s great info, is it safe to assume that the principles applied to Nikesh’s Spa, would also be applicable to other business too?
Thank you.
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Absolutely! The only reason the example was for Nikesh’s stuff is because he asked. But this works in any niche where there’s video to be had on YouTube or that you’ve created yourself.
The article was very informative and I hope that I will get such good article in future also. I often read your articles and will also read in future.
Hi Jack,
Thought you might want to know I did follow your advice and made the massage pages.
I’ve had my site for about 5-6 months now and although it had a growing amount of traffic it has dropped off totally over the last month or so. I know my site is very commercial which could be a problem so I’ve started a blog.
Is it usual to take this long to rank for keywords?
Could I be leaking rank through my affiliate links?
Any advice welcome
Cheers
Nikesh
Oops here’s the massage page:
http://www.spaandpampering.com/massage-guide.html
I’m thinking you’d have a much better time getting ranked for the right kind of traffic if you geo-targeted instead of trying to rank for the general massage types. You are in the UK, so “Swedish Massage UK” and related keywords would be easier to rank for and get you the traffic you need – which is people coming to your spa from nearby. After that, its links links links coming in to the page with specific anchor text for the words you want to rank for.
Would be even better if you made a page for each type of massage – thereby isolating that one phrase you want to rank for for each type of massage. Right now your density is shared with the other keywords you want to rank for and it makes it harder for Google to decide where to place you – not impossible – but harder. Each on its own page would be better with good links coming in to each as well.
Thanks Jack.
I’ve take that on board and made some changes take a look now.
http://www.spaandpampering.com/massage-guide.html Still needs a bit more work.
I’m trying to be the one-stop shop for all spa offers online in the UK. Any advice?
Oops here's the massage page:
http://www.spaandpampering.com/massage-guide.html