Content marketers have known this for a long time, which is why you often see text-based content broken up with visual content. As such, Google has done what you would expect: they give preference to search results that include YouTube videos. Video can achieve visibility in two ways: YouTube videos rank in general Google search results YouTube videos rank in YouTube search results, as well as show up in related and suggested videos. As with Basic SEO, Content Quality Comes First This is especially useful for video discovery on YouTube itself as the platform is pretty smart at understanding how much your audience interacts with and like your videos. Before we get into the tips on how to do this, let’s cover some basics of creating awesome video content worth watching: Create videos people want to watch. His most popular video has 9.5 million views after one year. Having a spreadsheet of high ranking keywords for your own brand and industry is a critical part of the process. To set up Serpstat search, use the following filters: Special elements on SERPs -> Video thumbnails Keyword difficulty** -> 1-20 This way you’ll see queries that already blend video results inside general results and at the same time those that don’t have too high organic competition: **Keyword difficulty is Serpstat’s own metric evaluation of the level of competition for a key phrase in top 10 search results, where: 0-20 => quite easy to rank in top 10; 21-40 => medium organic competition; 41-60 => difficult to rank in top 10; 61-100 => very difficult to rank in top 10. The tool analyzes both Google and YouTube search results showing you which videos won the race: Video Optimization Basics Now, the two first steps are the most crucial and challenging ones. It’s really simple: Search engines love text content, so make sure you have a lot of it around your video.
Video has become a necessary part of the content marketing mix for a few reasons. First, we have the fact that people just enjoy videos more than text in many circumstances. Human beings are visual creatures, and we tend to remember what we see more than what we read.
Second, some experts claim the average attention span of adults is shrinking. While the myth of the 8-second attention span has mainly been busted, even the most dedicated reader gets bored with too much text. Content marketers have known this for a long time, which is why you often see text-based content broken up with visual content.
Third, there are the metrics themselves. More than 500 million hours of video content is viewed every single day on YouTube, which means we are seeing more content in a single month than television networks in the United States have aired in 30 years. Wow!
Google’s Bias
In 2006, Google bought YouTube. It might have been their biggest outside investment they ever made — and the most profitable. All the way back in 2014, it was estimated that the site could be worth as much as $40 billion a year. That figure is not exact, but I’m sure it’s grown significantly.
As such, Google has done what you would expect: they give preference to search results that include YouTube videos. Videos hosted on their site gain featured snippets — a goldmine for those who want to get seen. When we at Internet Marketing Ninjas did our own study on the subject, we found that more than 20% of top results were YouTube videos.
User Preference
I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase a lot: “Have you checked YouTube?” The only more common search related phrase I hear is, “Have you Google’d it?” Not surprising, considering the video platform is the second largest search engine on the web, and it isn’t a search engine to begin with!
We are living in an age when failing to produce high quality and consistent video content could have a marked negative impact on your brand. The best time to have gotten on board is five years ago. The next best time is right now.
But should it be search engine optimized?
Of course! In fact, optimizing videos is easy because the process is almost identical to how you would optimize content for any other medium.
But first, let’s look at our opportunities. Video can achieve visibility in two ways:
- YouTube videos rank in general Google search results
- YouTube videos rank in YouTube search results, as well as show up in related and suggested videos.
Below are tips to generate visibility from both Google and YouTube search results.
As with Basic SEO, Content Quality Comes First
This is especially useful for video discovery on YouTube itself as the platform is pretty smart at understanding how much your audience interacts with and like your videos.
Before we get into the tips on how to do this, let’s cover some basics of creating awesome video content worth watching:
- Create videos people want to watch. In the past, it was enough to just make a video version of what you were already creating, and your user base would eat it up. But if you look at the popular channels on YouTube, they have a certain formula. You need to make sure you are following a similar structure and keeping your quality high, consistent and watchable. Your topics should be those about which your audience is going to be passionate. Most importantly, you have to present it in…
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