Video is the future of marketing. For decades, written content was the de facto standard for content marketing. With the emergence of inbound marketing, marketers became more engrossed with it, seeking ways for optimization. Resources were pumped into creating blog posts that were easily discoverable on search engines.
But all that has changed.
An effective content marketing strategy exceeds written content. It explores other content forms such as visual assets, webinars, podcasts and videos.
Video isn’t here to play. Marketers have recognized its viability, hence, 45% of marketers are investing in YouTube content this year – that’s higher than their investments in other forms of content.
YouTube needs no introduction. If you have ever watched a video online, chances are that you did that on the video platform. Over 500 million hours of video content are streamed daily. The number one video platform in the world was acquired by media giant Google in 2006. There are reports that it’s their biggest acquisition yet. Understandably. Google gives reference to content with a YouTube video embedded in it.
How can you optimize your YouTube video content to gain more reach?
1. Rename video file with your target keyword
Ranking high on YouTube begins with a keyword. Just as you’d prioritize keyword in written content, you need to do the same for your video. Use popular keywords in your niche that online users are searching for. If your content doesn’t fall in that category, it doesn’t stand a chance.
Don’t make assumptions.
Use YouTube SEO tools, to search for the high-in-demand keywords. Before uploading your video, insert the keyword in your video file.
Bots on the platform don’t watch your video before deciding whether its relevant or not, they work with the words they crawl. If your video file name aligns with them, it gets a pass mark.
2. Add your keyword in the title
When you want to watch a video online, what determines the videos you click? The title.
A video’s title is a summary of the video content. Relevance is key. As discussed above, popular keywords are highly relevant. If you got it wrong in the beginning by using an irrelevant keyword, you’d get it wrong here. That explains why many videos on YouTube are only occupying space.
How do you add your keyword in your title?
Make it as natural as possible. Viewers can tell that you are only after the clicks if it doesn’t flow naturally. Write several copies, and pick the most suitable.
Keep it short. Long titles are less catchy. The recommended word-count is 60 characters.
3. Optimize video description
You need to give your video a description. This information is important to Google to serve their viewers better. There’s a 1000 maximum character for video description. You might want to make use of the opportunity to explain how awesome your video is. But that isn’t such a good idea.
YouTube is all about videos. Viewers on it have one thing in common – the desire to watch videos. Don’t bore them with a long essay. If they wanted to read long texts, they’d have gone elsewhere. Besides, only the first two or three lines of the description are displayed by default – about 100 characters. Viewers have to use the “show more” button to see the remaining texts. If your first few lines aren’t interesting enough, they wouldn’t bother.
Focus on what you are sure they’ll read i.e the first few lines. Write it like a killer call-to-action that’d make viewers to quickly press the play button.
4. Use popular tags
Adding tags in your video is part of the uploading process. These tags inform viewers about the content of your video. But it doesn’t end there. That information is also of importance to Google. It enables them to place your content in suitable categories, showing up as a related video under videos with similar tags.
You don’t want your video showing up where it doesn’t fit in.
Don’t use popular tags that aren’t related to your video just to get more views. You stand the risk of being penalized.
It’s all tied together from the very first step to the last. If you want to leverage popular keywords and tags, start by creating a video related to them.
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Conclusion
Uploading videos about your brand online is an effective strategy for online Public Relations (PR). Thousands of people are watching optimized videos on YouTube as you read this. They can be watching yours too. The ball is in your court.
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