How to raise your local SEO with video marketing
More and more customers have come to expect rich content on the websites they browse.
Including video on your website has many benefits that I’ve covered in other articles, but it also does a lot to maximise your local SEO ranking.
Here are some tips on how to improve your local SEO with video.
Set up a YouTube channel
Set up a YouTube channel as soon as you can, if you don’t have one already. It’s an important outlet to present your brand and your message to the world.
You can post ads on it, but more importantly, you can use it to entertain and educate your viewers.
In this way you establish yourself as an authority and capture their attention, encouraging them to take their first steps on the road to a sale.
Videos on your YouTube channel will show up in regular search results with the proper tagging and keywords. Videos hosted on your website no longer do so, unless the ‘Video search’ function is used. There are still plenty of good reasons to host video on your website though (more about that later).
Use SEO principles when you set up your video
Start at the beginning, with the video’s filename. “MyBrandUsedCarsBairnsdale” is a much better filename than “Video1” or something non-descriptive like that.
This might be a good video title too if it is about your business, perhaps introducing your staff to potential customers, talking about your history and your vision, and so on.
Compose your title and description with good SEO in mind
Your title should be short and descriptive, with the keyword in front. For instance, “How To BuyAGood Used Car” might be a good video for a used car dealership to post. It will attract views and shares, which will improve your ranking.
You might not necessarily see an improvement in local business though, unless you add proper location tags as well. After all, people may be watching your video from all over the world.
Follow the principles of good SEO when you write your video description.Every video should have your business name, address and phone number exactly how it appears on your website – this works as a backlink and improves SEO.
You should also link to a landing page on your website that is specific to the product or issue you discussed in the video.Your home page is alright while you’re creating the video-specific landing page,but you should try as much as possible to have a landing page for each video, since that makes it stand out more to search engines.
Tag your video right
When you post your video, in the video manager under ‘Basic Settings’ you will see a box at the bottom right-hand corner for tags. Tags are search terms that make your content easier to find and help crawlers index you.
Add your location and some good keywords about your video topic and area of business. For our hypothetical video you could add: ‘used cars Bairnsdale, how to buy a good used car,Bairnsdale, East Gippsland’.
It would also be a good idea to include nearby towns, such as Wy Yung, Hillside, and Eagle Point, whose residents may be interested in your dealership.
Set your video location
This isn’t as important as including your location in the tags, but it’s a good idea. Click the down-arrow next to the ‘Edit’ button to go to ‘Info and Settings’, then click on ‘Advanced Settings’ and find the video location section.
Post a video transcription
A transcription is a great way to enrich your content and allow viewers (and search engines) to get a better idea of what’s in the video. You can get your videos transcribed for about $1 USD per minute from services such as Speechpad.
Host video on your own website
Including videos on your sitemap will help with SEO, since videos are markers of quality in-depth content. You should also include video sitemaps, which can contain useful information such as the length of the video, views, age appropriateness, whether the video can be embedded, and so on.
Share on social media and encourage others to do so
Forecasts say that video may well make up 80% of all web traffic by the year 2019. Join the party by sharing your video in as many places as possible – all your social media accounts for starters.
Any press releases you issue might be improved by videos as well. You can also (briefly) ask your viewers to like, share, and subscribe to your channel at the end of each video. If they liked your content a little reminder won’t hurt.
Videos are one of the fastest-growing marketing opportunities available to businesses today. If you have any questions or comments please contact me. I’d love to hear from you!
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