Critical Steps to Get Your Videos Viewed
As we discussed in an earlier article, video is already a key component of a successful digital marketing strategy and will only become more important over the next few years. If you’re planning on incorporating videos into your online campaign, though, you want to take the right steps to ensure that they rank highly on YouTube. It’s the sort of thing that rarely happens by accident—there are some essential elements of high-ranking videos that you’ll want to carefully consider for your videos.
The Average “Watch Time” for Your Videos
One of the key metrics that YouTube uses to rank videos is “watch time,” or the length of time viewers stay with a video. Before 2012, YouTube placed more emphasis on the total number of views, which resulted in better search results for videos with clever titles or provocative thumbnails. Research showed, however, a low audience retention rate and a high bounce rate on many of those videos, as well as a significant potential for manipulation of results.
So what are the best ways to increase watch time? According to Social Media Examiner, these strategies have been proved to work:
- Using titles and thumbnails that accurately describe and represent video content
- Creating content using long-tail YouTube keywords
- Creating a YouTube playlist with a logical sequence of videos
- Periodically inserting on-screen “cards” that allow viewers to link to related videos or playlists
Pay Attention to the Title of the Video
The title of your video may be its most important SEO component—there’s usually not a lot of searchable plain text in the video. Keep it short—most recommendations are that you keep it under a total of 70 characters. In addition, you want to ensure that your titles include relevant keywords. Research also shows that titles with keywords near or at the front perform best with search engines. Also, exact match keywords in a video title lead to better performance with search engines. While there are tools available to help you identify the best keywords, much of it is common sense. Put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients and ask what words they would type into a YouTube search box if they were looking for the services you provide. Chances are you’ll come up with highly effective terms.
The Value of Keyword Tags
This is a concept borrowed from Google. YouTube will let you attach a keyword tag to a video. Research shows that while doing so doesn’t seem to make much of a difference in ranking the original video, it does have an impact for recommended videos—those additional videos you see on the right-hand side of the screen on your desktop. The most effective keyword tags appear to be two- to three-word phrases—research shows that the best performing sites had anywhere from 31 to 40 unique keyword tags.
GetLegal Offers Full Service Video Search Engine Optimization
At GetLegal, we have extensive knowledge, experience, and skill in handling YouTube and video SEO. We have full service video production capability. We can help you create a campaign and write dialogue for your videos. We also offer onsite or in-studio videography and editing.
To learn more about how we can maximize the search value of your online videos, call us at 817-359-7077 or use our convenient online form.
