The premise of the article is correct – if you aren’t amplifying content using video you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. However, you probably already know this. What you probably don’t know is how to create video content that actually gets viewed. If you craft perfect, insight loaded, visually stunning videos but they aren’t generating engagement, it’s a waste of your time and money. So how exactly do you get more views on your videos? You could run advertisements to them, but the ROI is almost always negative. The best way to get views is to get your videos to rank in search engines. There are a number of video platforms to host your videos:
VimeoDaily MotionYour own siteYouTube
I personally choose to host my videos on YouTube and I strongly suggest you do the same. Not only are over 6 billion hours of video viewed monthly but the since the platform is owned by Google, there are obvious SEO benefits. As an SEO expert, I know a thing or two about getting things to rank in Google. There are 3 main aspects you need to optimize (note: YouTube is also a search engine!):
Contextual Signals
Contextual signals are what tells YouTube/Google what your video is about. These are the aspects that you can control when uploading your videos to YouTube. Here is a list of the contextual signals you need to optimize:
Engagement Signals
Search engines always side with the users, aka showing the right results for the right queries. A huge way they determine that is by looking at how people engage with your content. The more views, minutes watched, social media shares, etc, the higher your video will rank. This tells search engines that your content is relevant and well received. We almost have a chicken and the egg situation – how can you get views on your videos that aren’t indexed by search engines?
“Off page” Signals
Off page signals are aspects that take place on other websites (outside of YouTube). SEO experts refer to this as “link building” – or getting other websites to link back to your target website. These signals play a large factor in ranking videos, but should be undertaken carefully. Here are some very simple and safe places to build links to your video: Closing As our attention spans continue to shrink, video marketing will continue to rise. Make sure you get the basics down now, before it’s too late.
