Today in the world of digital marketing the emphasis has shifted to videos. Videos are the first priority for digital form of marketing. Videos definitely pose a greater value regarding the kind of content, the measure of interactivity and the visual appeal that it offers the viewers. So, why would companies leave videos out of their business strategy. Each and every company, business or brand is capitalizing on this opportunity. They are making full use of videos and how; they have a series of corporate videos, corporate ads, features, how-to videos, leaving no stone unturned in order to prove their mettle. These videos help in reaching more viewers and thus favour more conversion rates. Viewers or probable customers have every kind of information at a moment’s reach. They can access all kinds of information in an efficient manner with the help of videos. Videos definitely present a better way of understanding different aspects of a business, company or brand. A layman would prefer to watch a video in today’s times as opposed to reading boring textual data from a website or a physical handout. Videos save time in this sense. Reading would require more effort on the consumer’s part. Apart from this factor, reading is applicable to educated sector only, which is not a high number in India. Videos appeal to larger section of the society and you could experiment with different elements like graphics, live posts etc. The company could present otherwise boring company statistics, growth charts, their ideology, beliefs etc. in a fresh and exciting way to keep their viewers hooked for more. You have to arouse curiosity in the minds of the viewer if you want to bring them to the stage where they complete the action desired by you for the promotion of your business.Now, as we have understood a bit about the importance and effectiveness of videos in disseminating a message, we’ll look into the concept of SEO for videos. After all, your video marketing will be fruitful only if people get to see your video. This can be achieved through SEO.
SEO, i.e. Search Engine Optimization, is now the most talked about term in digital marketing context and essentially the most important. We might have come across a phenomena, which is ‘The demand for a product gradually diminishes if you can’t supply the product over a long period of time’, i.e. with prolonged absence from the market, be it in the form of advertising or any other form of marketing, chances are that people are going to move on really quick and forget about your product. Humans do have a tendency to forget things which are not part of the media frenzy. We are oblivion to quality as we only focus on the presentation of the product offered. Thus, it becomes a dire need to be in the front row. SEO comes into play, at this very moment, it means to optimise the results of a search in the favour of your product. It works the same way as it does for any other listings on search engines. You link your video to a particular keyword and then a list of results shows up, if you have mastered the art of SEO, then your result is going to be amongst the top.
With videos, you have comments, reviews and the most important one, your content, all of these aspects when combined with a high ranking and an admirable social media presence will determine your popularity on the internet. Now search engines have incorporated user experience as one of their criterias in rating a website or a video. So, it becomes all the more essential for you to consider your viewers’ needs and demands also in mind while making a video. How often does your video get viewed? How many likes has it got? How much duration are people, most of them, sticking to? All of these form a part of presenting the user experience. Make sure that your viewers have a great, interactive experience while watching your video. This will help you get a higher ranking, for sure. Let us see some factors for video ranking in order to understand their importance,
- Total watch time – this is the total time, in minutes, that your video has achieved since its inception. The more this watch time is, the higher the ranking of your video. This indirectly implies that your video is being liked by people in general and thus, gaining more attention and support. So get started with publishing longer videos.
- Mastering the hook – with longer videos, comes an issue of holding attention of your viewers. A majority people don’t wait till the end of a video if the content doesn’t compel them to watch the whole video. Well, that’s a really major issue. This signifies that your video should be compelling and present your viewers an enriching experience. Your video should be able to hold your viewers for at least 15 seconds. If this threshold is reached, then you have got them hooked for good. Once they cross this threshold them they are finding the content to their taste and going to stick around for the whole duration. That means that the first 15 seconds of a video are critical to determine the number of viewers it is going to retain till the end. So, make it as appealing as possible. Create introductions which are going to engage a lot of people. There’s a technique known as ‘PPP’, preview, proof and preview, to make the most of the first 15 seconds.
- Exact keyword in the title – you need to plan your keyword optimization well before you hit record. Mention the keyword at the start of the title. There’s something with keywords that needs to be kept in mind. Trying to optimize and old video doesn’t work well. For instance you linked your video to keyword, healthy desserts, then you realize that it is getting highly competitive and you changed it to, low carb desserts, this is not going to benefit you as you never said that keyword in your video. This looks fishy. So try to say the keyword in your content to assure the viewers of your credibility.
- Maximise user engagement – YouTube knows that people are interacting with your video. The more people watch, comment, like and subscribe to your video, the higher your video will rank. You can add annotations to remind and urge people to like your video. Ask people to subscribe and comment on the video around the end of your video.
- Optimise for click-through-rate – when someone searches for something on YouTube, it pays very close attention to what video they click on. For instance, your video is listed on the fifth position for a keyword and gets the majority of clicks implying YouTube to rank it higher. This gives out information that the content in the fifth position video is more relevant to that particular keyword.