Search engine optimization is absolutely critical to B2B web design and content marketing. But what about videos and video marketing? Well it comes down to it, do you want people to see and watch your videos? Let’s say you want people – especially potential customers – to watch and interact with your videos. Then SEO is essential for your videos too.
There are some great resources out there to help optimize your videos for search, including a great in-depth article on video SEO from the knowledgeable folks at WordStream. If you’d rather watch a video, check out the helpful tips from the Ahrefs team.
In this short post, we’ll take a rough look at 5 essential steps you need to take to optimize your video for search – whether it’s universal search results, video search results, or searching a video platform like YouTube.
Follow these tips when posting videos for your B2B company.
- Use keywords in your title (but make it interesting)
- Include keywords in the video description
- Create an interesting thumbnail + final slide
- Post it on your B2B website
- Share it anywhere !!!
Ok, let’s take a closer look at each tip.
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Use keywords in your title (but make it interesting)
When a video is finally finished and ready to upload, most B2B marketers get so excited about uploading it that they forget the title is everything – especially when it comes to search engine optimization.
The takeaway here is to include relevant keywords in your video title – BUT to make sure it’s still interesting. For example, “Tips on Accounting Software” is a streamlined title that does not entice the viewer to click on it. Be sure to optimize your title for interest and clickability (is that a word at all?). A more interesting title is “Accounting Software Tips To Save Your Company Money”, or “Save 30 Minutes A Day With These Accounting Software Tips” or “Time-Saving Software Accounting Tips”.
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Include keywords in the video description
This may sound like common sense, but it is an often overlooked or abused part of a video upload. The video description gives you a chance to enter more relevant keywords that a person might use to find videos like yours. The description should also include more information about what is covered in the video. While a person may not read the description before watching the video, search engines will take them into account when trying to match video to search queries.
If you are not sure about the length, always go to the page for a longer description with the most important information at the beginning.
Also, always, always, always include a link back to your B2B website in the description. Ideally, this should come directly after the introductory sentence.
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Create an interesting thumbnail + final slide
SEO is something of a popularity contest. The search results that get the more clicks and engagement tend to show up more often. Because of this, it is imperative that you or your designer create an interesting thumbnail with a title for your video. Not only does the title show up in search results – see the example below – it also tells the viewer what your video is about!
Also, when a person searches for a video on a video sharing platform like YouTube, the thumbnail slide will be much larger than the title! You don’t want them to scroll right past your video as it’s a random thumbnail that doesn’t correlate with your video title.
A final slide should also be created for each video. Why? Because if you don’t create one, the video platform will simply overlay other unrelated videos at the end of your video and the viewer will no longer remember who you are, what your brand offers, or your B2B website.
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Post it on your B2B website
If your B2B web design doesn’t allow you to upload videos to a video library or blog or website, contact your web developer or marketing agency. Carry on, we’ll be there when you come back.
Google and other search engines are giving videos more and more priority in search results. B2B websites with video therefore have the potential to show up more in search – especially if both the video and the website are optimized.
The only caveat here is to make sure that you publish the video on your website, whether you are using a video hosting platform like Vimeo or Youtube and embedding it on your website or uploading it directly to your website – you make sure that it is done correctly and does not adversely affect page speed.
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Share it anywhere !!!
Did all the exclamation marks convey our excitement? I hope so. You can’t wait for search engines to start ranking your video and showing it in search results. Take responsibility and start sharing your video everywhere! Not only share it on your B2B website, share it on your social media channels, upload it to social media for promotional campaigns, add it to your email newsletters, share it Your entire company through Slack or Teams or any other messaging platform you use.
The key here is to get more viewers to watch your video (from different IP addresses) in order to increase views. Remember the part that SEO is a popularity contest?
There you have it. Our 5 Critical, Crucial, Essential, Important Tips for Optimizing Your Video.
Author: Kara Jensen
Follow @BopDesignSD
Kara Jensen is the Creative Principal of Bop Design, a B2B marketing and web design and development company based in San Diego, CA. With the aim of communicating the unique business value of each customer, Kara forges links to target markets through strategic design and effective marketing concepts. Kara has 10 years … Show complete profile >
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