Be on the second biggest search engine
When it comes to Google, you make every effort to ensure your website is ranked high and easily found. The same should be done for your videos. YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine. Larger than all the other major search engines combined. With such a large number of users, it’s important that your organization is present on YouTube.
When creating your organization’s channel, provide as much information as possible. Add your logo as a profile picture. Use a relevant, high-quality image for your channel art. Provide a detailed channel description that explains what your organization does and what viewers can expect from your channel. The more info you provide means the more info YouTube (and Google) can use to serve up your videos in search results.
When it comes to adding videos to YouTube, it’s not enough to simply upload it, title it and publish it. Go the extra mile and fill out as much information as possible.
- Give the video a descriptive title with relevant keywords.
- Provide a detailed description with links to your website and social media accounts.
- Upload an eye-catching thumbnail – don’t just use the auto-generated ones.
- Tag the video with as many relevant keywords and terms.
- Review the auto-generated captions to ensure YouTube hasn’t mistakenly added incorrect text.
With these quick steps, you’re ensuring every viewer who comes across your channel or videos will have a complete, professional experience, and in doing so, you are providing Google with a better understanding of your organization. Win and win!
Provide each video with a home on your website
In the digital world, your website is how people interact with your organization. A successful website today makes use of different forms of media including video. Video is highly engaging and often a preferred way visitors want to interact with your organization online. That’s why it’s important to give your videos a place to live on your website.
Just as your website has pages and areas with different purposes, your videos should be the same. If your homepage is intended to provide an introduction to your organization, a company overview video or explainer video belongs here. Product or service videos? They belong on their respective product or service pages. Instructional or how-to videos? They belong with other support information on your site.
In the best case scenario, your video and web content should be created with each other in mind. Think about what actions you want viewers to take after they watch your video. The surrounding text, images and CTAs should provide additional relevant information and opportunities for the viewer to take action.
Give your videos a social life
Get your videos out there. Let them mingle, make friends and earn some likes. That means sharing your videos across your social accounts like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. All major social networks have invested deeply in video. They recognized video’s powerful engaging effect and in turn created video sharing tools to harness that power and keep users on their platforms.
So get your videos out there. Share them organically and share them often. While it may seem like you shouldn’t share content more than once, remember that not everyone saw it the first time. Plus, repeated exposure is key to building awareness.
Of course, not all videos are going to have a great social life. By that I mean not every video you make is going to be suitable for sharing across your social channels. An instructional video may seem out of place on someone's Facebook feed unless you’re exclusively in the business of sharing instructional videos. But for most organizations, sharing videos that inform and motivate people are perfect for social media.
Take action
Never before has video been such an accessible and effective component of marketing and communications. With that comes greater competition for the eyes of viewers. Taking the time to follow these suggestions will give your video an edge and ensure it earns you top results.
