Video SEO is a largely overlooked search marketing strategy. Even as videos continue
to gain significant traction in the search engines’ natural listings, most companies
either ignore them, or remain completely unaware of their potency. That oversight
represents a valuable edge your company can use to leapfrog your competitors in the
organic rankings.

The strategy blends traditional search optimization tactics with a relatively new
platform. With the rise of YouTube, Revver, Blip, and similar video sites,
consumption patterns have driven the search engines to provide these sites with
greater ranking authority. As long as your primary objective is clearly established,
a video SEO campaign can have a dramatic effect on your exposure in Google, Yahoo,
and Bing.

In this article, we’ll explain why you should integrate video SEO into your current
search marketing strategy. We’ll also provide a few key ingredients that will help
you avoid potential pitfalls along the way. Lastly, you’ll learn what to look for
when choosing a video SEO company that can drive more traffic and higher
conversions.

How Video SEO Improves Your Search Exposure

Before Google released their Universal Search platform in May 2007, their natural
listings were dominated by text-based pages. Videos were rare in the top positions.
Universal Search changed the way Google displayed their primary index. Google,
Yahoo, and Bing now include entries from their respective video search platforms.
What’s more, popular video-sharing sites have been given higher ranking authority
and increased link weight (we’ll describe this latter point in a moment).

Video SEO gives you greater exposure in the search engines through two levers.
First, it caters to the algorithm used for Universal Search. By syndicating your
videos to authoritative video-sharing sites, you’ll enjoy more exposure through
their increased ranking authority. In effect, those sites will rank higher, drawing
more people to your videos.

Second, videos that are placed on your site (as opposed to syndicating them) attract
links - both directly and indirectly. As your videos gain popularity, direct links
will build naturally, pointing to the pages on your site that host the videos.
Indirect links will point from other sites whose owners have embedded your videos.
As a result, your inbound link profile will continue to grow and strengthen, lifting
your site higher within the search engines’ organic listings.

3 SEO Video Tips To Capture Higher Search Positions

Your video SEO campaign can only be effective if you recognize the limitations of
the search engines. First, their algorithms cannot read lips. In order to rank for
your target keywords, they must be available to the search engines’ spiders in text
form. If you’re placing videos on your site, optimize your titles and surrounding
text, and include an edited transcript of the video. If you’re syndicating them,
optimize your external titles and tags.

Second, focus on inbound links. An effective video SEO campaign relies on
contextually related links pointing from a wide breadth of sites. Videos that spark
a groundswell of attention - whether through entertainment, information, or
controversy - can achieve this easily.

Third, integrate a social media sharing component. You want viewers to share your
videos with their friends on Facebook. You want them to “Tweet” about your videos on
Twitter. You want them to bookmark your videos on Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon.
These social media sites can form the backbone of your video SEO campaign, driving
waves of inbound links to your site.

Key Factors In Choosing A Video SEO Company

Traditional search optimization is a mature strategy. SEO specialists have honed
their craft for more than a decade. By contrast, video SEO is still an evolving
science. Even though it leverages the core tenets of a traditional optimization
campaign, the rise of social media and video-sharing sites has infused video SEO
with enormous complexity. Hiring a video SEO company removes the need to keep up
with the roiling landscape. The key is using the right criteria to identify a
proficient firm.

A professional video SEO company should have an established track record that shows
a keen grasp of the search engines’ organic algorithms. That track record should
also demonstrate an ability to evolve as the algorithms change. Many search
optimization experts were completely unprepared for the debut of Universal Search.
By extension, so too, were their clients.

Leveraging Video SEO For More Traffic And Higher Conversions

A carefully executed video SEO campaign can sharply increase your exposure within
the search engine’s natural listings. When implemented as a key component of a
multi-pronged search marketing campaign, it can drive more targeted traffic to your
site. Targeted traffic translates into higher conversions. If you are not yet
leveraging video SEO for your site, your current organic rankings may be more
vulnerable than you realize.