Enhance Your YouTube Videos
YouTube is a great media marketing tool. We recently discussed how to create and optimize a YouTube channel for your business. Once you have yourself established on YouTube, it’s time to get cracking and develop some awesome video content to market your business. But before you go crazy with your creativity, it’s time to set a few ground rules first. The whole idea for your video is to rank well in order to bring in a continuous stream of new customers. To do that, there are some great ranking factors that you should consider for each video that you post.
Meta Data
Just as in webpage optimization, your title and description tags are key ranking factors. This is where you will want to insert your relevant keywords - right at the forefront of the video titles. These are small details often overlooked, but when search engines crawl your video, they are looking for those primary keywords to know how to rank your content. Also, be sure to include links to your website and social profiles in the video description. You want to make it easy for users to find your website.
Quality Counts
This is pretty straightforward: HD videos rank higher than low-quality videos. YouTube will highlight HD videos in search results. Remember, low-quality videos are super irritating and will get you quite a few dislikes, not to mention loss of users.
Get Your Video Noticed
The number of views, likes, social shares, and links affect YouTube video rankings. Since you’ve taken the time and effort to create a video, it’s time to go the extra mile and make sure your video is noticed and ranks well. In order to gain more views, social shares, links, and likes, there are several ideas you can implement. First off, share on all your social profiles. If you have an e-mail blast or a regular newsletter, you can include your video link. You can also embed your video on your website, use it as a blog post topic, or if you have a video section on your website, place it there. These are all good ways to gain excellent exposure.
Don’t Forget About the Thumbnails
Customizing your thumbnail can help increase your video views and shares. The image should be high quality (think 640 x 360 pixels minimum, 16:9 aspect ratio), vibrant, and eye catching. Flashy, colorful images tend to attract the eye and will help your video get more interest.
Subtitles and Closed Captions
YouTube allows you the option to upload a closed caption file. This is a great feature that will make your video accessible to so many more people. Those who are deaf or hard of hearing, or those who speak another language will still be able to view and share your video. As an added bonus, captions are crawled by search engines. This gives your video another boost in ranking higher in search.
It’s important to take the time to create high-quality video content. This is your business and your brand that we’re talking about, so it’s worth the consideration and effort. Keep in mind that great content will naturally get shares and likes, which in turn increases your rankings. Video is a marketing tool that should not be crossed off the list. Creating a well optimized YouTube channel and quality videos will ensure you a successful YouTube presence.