Best Video SEO Practices in 2024

Photo by Seth Doyle on Unsplash

Video Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a constantly evolving element within businesses, so it can be challenging to understand and apply. Video content is everywhere, and your brand needs to ensure that the video you supply will align with your target audience, make an impact, and create conversions.

This guide will help you develop video SEO best practices, optimize content, and ensure it ranks highly for viewers.

What is Video SEO?

Before we dive into the practices of video SEO, your brand must clearly understand what it is and how it will impact your business. When the average consumer gets on a search page, the keywords and phrases you use throughout your video content (and website) will determine whether it pops up during that specific search.

Video SEO includes the following specific elements:

• Content within the video
• Description of the video
• Metadata language
• Your brand’s channel
• Video playlists

If you want viewers to click on your video above the competition, it will ensure growth in traffic, views, subscribers, and eventually, sales and revenue. But the challenge many brands find is – how exactly do you get your video content to rank? And what are the best practices to follow?

Video SEO Practices to Follow

Video is one of the most powerful types of content for your brand as long as it’s done correctly. More than 54% of consumers love to see videos from their favorite brands, so incorporating video into your SEO and online marketing strategy is necessary to stay ahead of the competition. 

Video content is innovative and interactively attracts consumers to ensure increased conversions. Your brand may need to work at overcoming media activation challenges and optimize videos to show up when your ideal audience searches for specific products, services, or information. 

When utilizing the best SEO practices, you can effectively:

• Reach a wider, broader audience pool of people interested in your product or offerings.
• Boost your social presence across various channels.
• Attract the use for more backlinks, and
• Develop website traffic from your video content.

Here are some of the video SEO best practices your brand should follow.

Keyword Search and Topics

If your audience isn’t searching for the topics your video content covers, you won’t get views, even if it is higher in SEO rankings. As a first step, ensure that the video content you utilize is relevant to topics people are searching for across the internet. 

You should find some helpful technology and tools that can provide an upper hand in identifying these words and topics. Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool is a great way to search specific keywords and phrases to see how they rank. Try experimenting with different variations of the word about your topic, and then narrow it down from there.

Consider looking up ways to analyze competitors and help plan your video content. It is critical to choose keywords that make sense for your content. These tools that help with keyword lists, ideas, and traffic can provide insight into valuable data that helps inform your SEO strategy. 

Titles, Headlines and Descriptions

Besides understanding the topic and necessary keywords, you also need to grab SEO by the title, headlines, and descriptions within your video content. For example, Google will look at the title of your video to understand what’s covered, so it should be a given, but you need to include the main keyword somewhere in your title.

Titles and headlines should be brief and to the point. They present an opportunity to increase your click-through rates (CTR) for brand videos, and more click-throughs ensure you gain more viewers. Google will also check out the video description to understand your video topic further and determine how it ranks.

For example, if numbers are relevant to help draw attention, use titles with words like “7 Must-Have tools to …..” that will help attract more clicks. Hook in your viewers with the first sentence of your sub-headline with a bold statement related to your topic, or provide some key takeaways. The description should also feature your primary keyword.

High-Quality Video Content

Another aspect of your SEO you may need to be aware of is that ranking high-quality content is essential. Depending on your niche, you need to capture the attention of viewers, so within the first ten to fifteen seconds, your videos should have eye-catching visuals and value. 

Consider your marketing strategies and what characteristics they need to be more high-quality. Your goal should include helping, inspiring, or educating your audience in some fashion. 

Your equipment is another aspect of ensuring high-quality video. Invest in things like audio software, lighting, camerawork, and editing. These technological investments can ensure that your audience finds your video more entertaining and will be interested in watching it.

Visual SEO with Video Thumbnails

Your video thumbnail is a small image that should showcase your video content and help draw your audience’s interest. If your thumbnail picture is too generic, blurry, or doesn’t stand out, potential prospects will not bother clicking on it.

Grab the user’s attention with something powerful related to your niche. For instance, if your brand specializes in travel, opt for a visual of a scenic destination that relates. If you’re a baker, consider a visual of your finished (or close-to-finished) bakery product.

Examine other video thumbnails from those within your niche that rank high to get a good idea of what you should be showcasing. Work with your digital marketing teams and tech people to put a unique spin on your video thumbnails that will inspire more clicks.

Incorporate Time Stamps into Videos

You can optimize SEO by including specific time stamps within your video content. These are considered “key moments,” which can help break up longer videos into more manageable sections for viewers.

Viewers can then quickly click through or skip to areas they want to see more easily. Some of the best practices for time stamp creation include the following:

• Put a label or concise description on the line (keep it brief!)
• Keep your timecode in a format that translates minutes:seconds
• Put the times in order

Build Links and Embedding

Remember to include backlinks within your videos, as they are so important for SEO. These link indicators ensure that other websites and pages find your video content credible and authoritative, which in turn helps potential customers find you trustworthy and increases satisfaction.

Adding your videos to other pages across your site is another way to allow you to rank in more than one place. It also allows your audience to gain a way that directly links to your site rather than just your video channel or platform.  

Create Videos with SEO in Mind

Your brand should have a grasp of how to optimize video SEO with content that is relevant and interesting to your ideal audience. Remember that even with good content, you need to ensure that your video shows up when people are looking for your specific product, service, or offerings. 

Sharing your videos via social media is another great way to incorporate them across another channel and reach a larger audience. Be sure to send any new videos to email subscribers to keep existing customers updated on your brand. 

Video has the power to reach people in a way that blogs and words can only describe. With video, you have a visual that can help explain and persuade your consumers. Keep rankings at the forefront with your high-quality videos and ensure that your marketing teams create strategies that provide success.