Video SEO: A Guide to Optimizing Your Videos for More Views

Although many recognize the importance of creating videos for online courses, few know how to exploit the full potential of this content to attract a larger audience.

In this practical guide about Video SEO, we’ll cover everything you need to know to improve your videos’ rankings in search engines, increasing traffic and conversion.

What is video SEO?

Video SEO refers to video optimization for search engines (SEO – Search Engine Optimization). 

This involves several practices to improve the positioning of content in search results and on hosting platforms such as YouTube. 

Why is Video SEO important?

The growing popularity of videos in recent years has not gone unnoticed by search engines, which is why this type of content has gained more visibility and even its own tab on Google’s first search page.

In fact, the search giant is also preparing to launch its AI-based software, called Search Generative Experience (SGE), which will display relevant video results right at the top of the search results.

With search engines themselves signaling the importance of this type of media and the privileged visibility they are gaining, it is no wonder the care that companies and professionals are taking with video SEO.

We also cannot forget that the second most accessed website in the world, behind only Google, is YouTube, a platform focused on video sharing.

Jane Javor, SEO Manager at NP Digital, has this to say about the platform: “YouTube is the second largest search engine and shouldn’t be ignored – there are over 2.7 billion active users on YouTube, and publishing Optimized videos can put your brand in front of potential customers.”

But with thousands of people sharing content every day, you might be wondering: how do I stand out? That’s where video SEO comes in.

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Video SEO Best Practices

If you create content for the internet, you probably know that search engines can’t read visual content. 

Therefore, to optimize the SEO of your videos it is essential to make the most of all available textual resources, as we will see below.

Keyword Research 

Just like the keyword research you would do before writing a landing page or blog post, it’s crucial to do the same to optimize your videos. 

Focus on terms that have decent search volume and low competition. Use tools like Google Adwords to do this.

Use the defined keyword in the video title, description, tags, transcript, and any additional content related to the video. 

Take a look at the list below so you don’t miss anything:

• Optimized title: Create a compelling title that includes your main keywords.

• Detailed description: Write a complete and informative description that explains the content of the video, using the defined keywords.

• Tags: Use tags that help search algorithms understand the video content.

• Attractive thumbnail: Create an attractive thumbnail that catches users’ attention to get more clicks and signal to search engines that your content is relevant.

• Transcription: Include a transcript of what is being said and shown, as the more text, the better for video SEO

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Video description

A well-crafted description makes your video easier to find. 

Use relevant keywords at the beginning of the description. They should reflect the content of the video and present the terms your audience is likely to use to search for content like yours.

Write one concise and compelling summary of the video in the first 150 characters, as it is what appears in the search results.

Then continue explaining what the video is about and provide additional information that may interest the viewer and make them watch until the end.

Use relevant hashtags at the beginning or end of the description. On YouTube, these hashtags appear above the video title and can help with discovery.

Finally, include links to other videos, your website, social media or other relevant resources. 

Add calls to action, encouraging viewers to subscribe to the channel, like the video, or leave comments.

Look at this example below:

TIP: If the video is long, include timestamps in the description to help viewers jump to specific parts of the content, or even better, list the most important chapters, like the example.

Optimized Tags

Tags are words or short phrases used to describe the content of a video in a summarized and categorized way. 

They are an important SEO step for video, as they help the algorithms of platforms like YouTube to understand the topic and context of the material, facilitating indexing and display in search results and recommendations.

Follow these three tips to get the right tag choice:

• Keywords: Start with your main keywords. They must be highly relevant to the video content.

• Variants and Synonyms: Include variants and synonyms of your main keywords to cover different ways of searching.

• Long Tail Tags: Use long-tail tags (longer, more specific phrases) which may have less competition and be more effective at reaching a specific audience.

In the case of a video about how to make chocolate cake, here’s an example of the tags that could be used:

chocolate cake, chocolate cake recipe, simple chocolate cake, easy cake recipe, how to make cake, quick cake, chocolate dessert, dessert recipe, homemade cake

Use the number of tags allowed by the platform, always keeping them relevant and related to the video content.

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Video transcript

A transcript is a textual version of spoken content in a video.

It includes all words and dialogue spoken by participants in the video, as well as other relevant auditory information, such as sound effects and descriptions of background music.

Transcription is useful for improving accessibility, video SEO, and user experience.

As we mentioned earlier, search engines cannot index visual or auditory content. Therefore, having a transcript allows the content to be indexed and ranked in search results, increasing visibility.

Take a look at the transcription of the video we used as an example earlier:

When creating transcripts, consider the following for effective video SEO:

• If there is more than one person participating in your video, indicate each time a new person starts speaking.
• Include sound effects to represent different sounds, such as when someone laughs or claps.

Another feature currently much appreciated by the public is subtitles.

Although video platforms like YouTube automatically create captions, they are often inaccurate. Therefore, we recommend that you create and upload your own caption.

Transcripts are also great for creating translations and subtitles in other languages, expanding the reach of the video to a wider audience.

Eye-catching thumbnails

Thumbnail is that small image that appears next to the video title in the search results. 

This is what, most of the time, first captures the user’s attention, encouraging them (or not) to stop scrolling and click on your video, so it’s vital that your thumbnail stands out.

For those who post content regularly and want to build a brand that their audience can easily recognize, it is advisable to maintain a standard colors and fonts in your thumbnails. See the following example:

Note that in addition to the attractive image, thumbnails must clearly describe what the video is about in very little space, so be clear and concise. 

Also make sure your thumbnail looks good on mobile. Avoid very small or low-resolution elements.

Thumbnails are so important for video SEO (as they complement an optimized title and description) that we highly recommend you do these with different models to see which generate more clicks and conversions.

Shorts and Sharing Links

Shorts are short videos that can be used to attract a larger audience, as they are more likely to be watched until the end, increasing completion rate and watch time, important SEO factors for videos.

They are also easier to share and can become an important referral marketing resource for your channel, increasing the reach of your content and your chances of sales.

Furthermore, you can take advantage of these shorts yourself to update your social networks, publishing strategic and thought-provoking cuts of your videos and inviting people to watch more on your channel or buy your course to have access to the complete material.

Leave links to your social networks in your video description, encouraging people to visit your other channels, leave comments and share your content.

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Video format and size

Finally, pay attention to the format, size and resolution of your video, as this directly influences the quality with which it will be seen.

Although it has nothing to do with text, this is undoubtedly an important video SEO factor, as it implies the time the viewer will spend watching and the possibility of being published on different platforms.

We recommend that you save your video to MP4 (MPEG-4) to ensure high quality and a small file size, ideal for it to load quickly and look good.

Improve your video SEO strategy and sell more online courses

Now that you know how to ensure good video SEO, it’s important to apply these strategies and track your performance to ensure you’re on the right track. You can do this by monitoring:

• Keyword performance in search engines and social media searches
• Click through rate 
• Conversion Rates
• Video engagement (likes, shares and comments)

Other than that, stay consistent! Do regular posts to keep your audience engaged and your channel growing and gaining more visibility.

Nowadays, with a good cell phone and microphone it is possible to record quality videos. Set up a studio at home and make a creation and publishing schedule to help you maintain consistency.

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Keep in mind that it’s really worth investing in this type of content, since they stay online forever and even your older materials generate new views every day, improving your SEO.

Furthermore, videos are a great way of publicizing for anyone who wants to sell online courses, helping you attract an audience and proving your authority in the area.

Learning Management System (LMS), Coursify.me has all the necessary features for you to integrate and import content from video hosting platforms such as Vimeo and YouTube.

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With the Coursify.me you upload videos, texts and other materials from your computer and the main platforms to your online school with complete ease.

Visit our website, do a test and take advantage of all the features we offer to create and sell quality online courses.