How does SEO work for videos?

Using video SEO has been a must since videos became the most widespread, the most clicked and the most popular form of media content on the web.

Search engine optimisation is a complex operation which takes account of a vast array of factors and needs to be tailored to each medium you are looking to optimise. It is therefore important to know the difference between text optimisation and video optimisation.

What is video SEO?

In a nutshell, SEO involves creating web content with features ‘rewarded’ by search engines such as Google. Optimising content means enabling the Google algorithm to understand what that particular content is about and position it among the top search results. These concepts apply to both text and video content.

How to optimise video content for SEO

By nature, video content, unlike ordinary web pages, does not contain text. Therefore, text optimisation not being an option, a different approach is required.

Upload the video to the right platform

While YouTube is by far the most popular platform for sharing video content, you should remember that videos can also be uploaded to other platforms, such as Vimeo or Wistia.

These are alternative platforms that can help improve your brand’s visibility to a larger number of users. Wistia, in particular, automatically creates the video’s metadata, as alt (alternative) text, aiding the optimisation process.

Optimise the text and meta description

To understand how video SEO works, it is worth looking at some aspects of web page optimisation. In both scenarios, the title, text and meta description (brief description of the content which appears on the search page) are key parameters to work with in order to achieve good positioning.

You should therefore ensure that the title and meta description are within the minimum and maximum character limits established by the platform and that they contain the keywords.

Include a video text transcription (and translation)

SEO also depends on search engines identifying keywords within a text. To improve a video’s content for SEO, it is therefore vital to include a transcription of the audio track (in other words, actual subtitles) or, alternatively, a summary of the highlights.

video translation by means of subtitles enables you to reach an even wider audience and, by increasing the content’s accessibility, you also multiply the hits it achieves.

In addition, through word-for-word transcription or insertion of a written summary, you can effectively include all the keywords necessary for search engines to understand the video content and position it appropriately on their pages.

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How does video search engine optimisation work? All the best tips for optimising your videos.