Optimizing Videos – How It Can Help Your Business

As you may know, search engine optimization begins with good content. Content that appeals to a broad base of Internet users is bound to be shared, which creates links and drives traffic to a website. While content is mostly text–based, optimizing video is becoming increasingly popular among marketers. Why? It gets attention and delivers a clear message quickly.

Using Video As Part of Your Online Marketing Plan

How can your business use video in its online marketing mix? There are a number of options. If you want your video to go viral – i.e. get posted on YouTube by your site’s visitors – you need create content that is entertaining, funny, unique or controversial. Before going too far over the edge though, you need to consider your target audience. Will they be outraged by what you create? Will you gain enough new customers to offset those lost by your YouTube moment?

If you are concerned about customer reaction, you can play it safe but still create compelling content. According to recent research, product reviews, product demonstrations and "fun" content like Top 10 lists are popular ways to incorporate video into your website.

Video is also tailor–made for blogs. Why make people read a post when you can give them a video clip that presents the gist of your argument? A video version may prove to be even more popular than the text, and is certainly easy for users to post elsewhere.

You don’t need to rely on your users to post your videos around the Web though. You can do it yourself and, in the process, build links to your website. Consider this the next incarnation of search engine optimization.

Video and SEO – How They Work Together

Like any kind of content, videos need to be tagged. These meta tags, as they are called, help users locate your mini–movie. Let’s say you run a computer repair service in Toronto and you want to post clips on how to buy hardware. Your title tag would include a description of the content, using keywords and some reference to "Toronto". Other meta tags should incorporate keywords that apply to your business and the video, like "computer", "repair", "buying" and "hardware"(or the specific type of hardware you are talking about e.g. monitors, printers, laptops).

By optimizing these tags – which include the title and description – you can attract your target audience and, theoretically, drive traffic to your website.

Of course, optimized metadata cannot do the job alone. You need to provide interesting and useful information and create an effective marketing strategy to get your video noticed. (Hint: social media and bookmarking sites are a great way to promote your video clips.)

The Way of the Future

Search engine optimization has always been important for drawing traffic to a website. Applying the basic SEO concepts you already know to online video will bring you even greater marketing success.