YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Metacafe or LiveVideo. We all heard about them, we all use them but how many of us actually know how to optimize our video channels in order to get the best results in a video search engine optimization campaign? Listed below are some of the most frequent problems of video SEO and some of the solutions we, here at SEOBPO employ, in order to help our clients become No #1!

The Problem:  Index

One of the biggest problems when it comes to SEO for videos is having them indexed. This is a problem because search engines, as complex and developed as they are, still cannot compete with the human mind. They need keywords. A search engine cannot tell if your video is relevant because it cannot encompass the content and thus, know what the video is about.

The Solution: The Title/ Transcription Service

Even so, you can still have your video indexed using titles and descriptions. This means that if your title is clever and catchy, they will index it. Of course, you do not have to focus only on keywords when you do this, because if your content is good and the title is interesting, people will watch the video. After all, people decide to watch a video if they find the title attractive!

If what you want is to have all your content indexed, you could get a transcription service. For those of you who are not acquainted with this term, a transcription service is a business that converts speech (both live and recorded) into a written or electronic text document. This way, you promote your content and use keywords at the same time! Also, I suggest you get a person, an actual human being to edit that text in order to make it nice and easy to read!

The Problem: Ranking

A lot of people who do video SEO worry about ranking, especially if they use keywords which are found in the content. This makes perfect sense since ranking relies on keywords and having them in the video itself makes the job difficult to search engines.

The Solution: Quality

To them, I say: worry no more! Do not forget that video is a medium that allows a lot more links than others. Videos can be embedded on websites, so if your content is good, it will reach a wide range of people.  If other videos are related to your own, people will stumble upon them and, although ranking will be a bit tough to attain, the content will soon be everywhere!

The Problem: Hosting

Should you host your video on your own website or on a different one? Of course, posting it on your website is only natural since you own the content and the keywords you use will redirect users to it. Therefore, you have a lot more traffic. On the other hand, using a third party website such as YouTube, DailyMotion or Vimeo will bring you noticeably more viewers.

The Solution: Whichever Serves You Best

It depends on what you need more, traffic or viewership.  In the end, you can use both and add you own website as the source of the video on the third party website. This way you can have both traffic and increase the content’s popularity.

The Problem: Optimization

How can you make your video viral and relevant? How can you make sure it will be found by the people you are targeting? These are all important questions that might give you headaches. But before you rush to take an aspirin and worry about this, keep on reading!

The Solution:  It’s All about Titles, Again

You should focus on the video’s title. As I have said before, people watch videos because they seem interesting, useful or relaxing. If the title catches their eye, they will watch it. But if the title or description is boring, they will not take their time to give it a chance and see if the content matches their expectations.  You can try adding keywords in the title, but a fun title will work better! One thing you should always remember is that people are busy. Watching a video, whether it is for learning or leisure purposes should take as little time as possible because your viewers will lose their patience and get bored. Eventually, no matter how good it actually is, your content will be considered tiresome and it will not be shared.

The Problem: Mass Posting Services

After you’ve managed to index your video, decided where to host it and how to optimize it, there’s one little detail left. What is the best way of sharing your videos? You could use a mass posting service such as TubeMogul which will turn your little video into a viral one, maybe even into a new phenomenon if you’re lucky. But, as it often happens, there’s a downside as well. If your videos will be posted on your website and let’s say, YouTube as well, people will most likely share and embed the YouTube link rather than the one from your website.  This is how sharing becomes tricky!

The Solution: Do It Yourself!

Post the videos yourself, so that you have total control over the title, descriptions and keywords. This way, although people might still embed the YouTube link, you will do your very best to increase ranks.  Another thing you could do is use catchy titles for the videos on third party websites, so that you will not lose traffic, while still promoting your content. After you do this, you can use optimized keywords in order to get as much traffic as possible on your own website!

Do you have any other problems when it comes to doing Video SEO? Is video search engine optimization part of your iMarketing strategy and if so, what benefits has it brought until now?