So, if we go through what most people do when they upload a video on YouTube, it would sound like a pretty familiar process for most people. First step is to create the video, do some basic keyword optimization for the title, then we upload it, then we embed it on our page. In almost all cases, this is exactly the same process, however, the end result is that your video ends up in a sea of other related videos with no real clear head start. Your video will not rank #1 in YouTube for that keyword, and it will probably only be found by a minority who visit your blog, or who are searching deep results on YouTube. So, apart from the usual keyword optimization, how can we boost the productivity of our videos using SEO? Let me give you a few quick tips.
Who would have thought it, that SEO can in fact play a part in our video marketing efforts? You see, the one thing that a lot of us fail to remember is that the majority of YouTube publishers are not internet marketers, and don’t know how to earn a larger audience to their videos. This is where we can use YouTube to our advantage.
Adding a few simple back links to your video can mean a lot. It can mean the difference between ranking low in the search results in YouTube. The thing to consider here is that with YouTube, it is widely believed that there is a distinctive difference between the value of a back link to the page where your video is, and the value of a link when the video is embedded on a page.
There are a few methods that will enable you to increase the amount of back links to your video, all of which I will explain below.
Apart from the factor of the valuable back link, by embedding the video on your blog, this will increase views of your video, and will encourage interaction with the video. If you have information to share, why not share it to your visitors rather than leave it hidden on YouTube. Not only will it provide a back link, but through sharing that post on social media, you will create some kind of buzz about that video as well. Others may share that on forums and their own blogs as well, which if this results in a video being embedded, this will result in more link juice flowing to that video.
Every single video that I create is entered into Traffic Bug. For those who are not aware of what Traffic Bug is, it is a service that allows you to enter a URL that corresponds to your website (videos, articles, related posts, etc), and over time, it will submit these URL’s to blog directories, RSS directories, and it will also ping these URL’s to ensure that they are indexed fast.
Now, the back link value of these links that you gain using Traffic Bug is relatively low, however with the lack of webmasters who apply some basic SEO to their videos, the amount of effort required to rank your videos better is relatively low. In almost all cases, you will only need to submit your videos to Traffic Bug, however there is one step further that you can take in this instance, especially if you are finding it difficult to rank a video better.
This is only really applicable in cases where you are up against some very stiff competition, and in most cases where the competition is relatively low, this method will be extreme overkill.
Most blog networks such as Article Marketing Automation, and Unique Article Wizard, will allow you to submit posts that include videos to be distributed amongst their network of blogs. In a lot of cases, a simple transcription of the video itself will suffice, but you will need to remember that a lot of posts that are distributed amongst the networks are manually approved, to remember to keep quality in mind if you want a large distribution.
In this scenario, you will see your embedded video distributed amongst a potential large number of blogs that all have a varied PageRank, all providing link juice to your video. Although it is an aggressive method, you could easily see yourself ranking much higher for those extremely competitive key phrases in YouTube, and in turn, converting those viewers into website traffic.
These methods, at this point in time, are not widely used amongst webmasters, however with a small amount of effort by putting these methods into action, you could very well see your videos ranking better, not only in YouTube, but in Google itself.