YouTube has emerged as the second most popular platform after Facebook. Given that it was introduced only 14 years back in 2005, it is phenomenal. Today nearly 500 hours of videos are getting uploaded on it every single minute, which tells the importance of videos in online marketing strategies. YouTube SEO follows its own search algorithm, which uses a two-fold approach. It gives special importance to viewer engagement and satisfaction. For this, it checks the watch time of the video and its relevance. Hence, in YouTube marketing, these two parameters are given extra focus.
Here are some of the ways in which the SEO agencies ensure that the uploaded video gets good visibility and hence helps in enhancing the sales for their clients.
Make Your Videos Searchable
Unless people can find you in the mammoth sea of videos, all your efforts to post unique content in the best of the quality goes waste. To make them know you exist, make your content searchable by using the apt keywords in the title. The title that you keep should give the exact idea of what is there in the video.
There is an auto-complete feature in YouTube, which video marketing services often utilize to make titles more searchable. As this feature gives a better understanding of what words are often used by people when searching for something on YouTube, it helps in optimizing the title and keywords better.
Video Description
Video marketing is much more complex than making a good quality video. You need to keep the search algorithms in mind like what they value the most, to what aspect they give brownie points and what they consider as negative etc. One of the things that work wonders in getting your video noticed is the summarization of the video content. This helps in knowing what exactly is shown in the video and thus reduces the abandoning rate because the user opens the video only if the description appeals to them.
Include Closed Caption (CC) Feature
This is one of the most important features that benefit in multiple ways. CC is basically the transcription of spoken dialogue that keeps appearing in the bottom and can be toggled on or off as per the users' preference. Having a CC feature makes the content accessible to people who have a hearing problem or are deaf. Even the non-native English speakers who find it difficult to follow the spoken dialect can comprehend the message with captions.
It is beneficial for SEO too as the search engine crawlers can crawl through the captions and audio transcript to understand the video content. It improves the user experience, which is another plus for SEO as they can enjoy the video with captions regardless of the surroundings they are in. It is also found that captions engage the users better and they are more likely to view the entire video rather than abandoning it midway.
Have Strong and Engaging Openings
If the viewer abandons any video after the initial few seconds of watching, it is taken as a big negative point by search algorithms. To engage users and motivate them to keep watching the video content, it is important that you have a strong and engaging opening. Also, the curiosity factor should be maintained so that the viewer feels motivated to keep watching it unless the mystery gets exposed.
Check Out Your Competition
Video marketing is not just about making beautiful videos with unique content and making this content accessible and inclusive. It is also about understanding your competition and how to get an edge on them. You need to see the type of videos your competitors have posted.
If you find that 50% of the stuff on the first page of the search results is less than a year old, then your competition is comparatively easier. However, if the first page is dominated by older videos, then you have a hard task ahead as competing with established players need a lot of time, patience and strategical and well-planned moves. You need to then find out the keywords and phrases used by these established players and try to use them in your video titles and meta descriptions.
YouTube marketing is not an easy job. Though its algorithms are simpler when compared to Google, it is not easy to crack. It requires professional experience and access to the right tools and techniques to crack it and gain visibility by ranking higher in its search results.
Great content is only the first step towards a successful YouTube marketing strategy. To make it really successful and establish your identity, many other factors need to be accounted for, adjusted and experimented so that you can create a positive impact. The ways described above are effective and tested strategies, which if followed by closely monitoring their impact will definitely help you in making your presence felt in a big way.
