How to place a video in the Google SERP? What are the benefits? Here is the guide to increasing organic visibility with videos
YouTube is the second most used search engine in the world after Google (its owner) and, also for this reason, it has become an indispensable channel to increase the awareness of your brand.
The success of this platform is mainly due to the possibility of communicating more directly thanks to videos, quickly reaching users with images and sounds and thus facilitating the methods of use. In fact, it should be considered that navigation today is increasingly mobile and users demand immediate answers to their searches. In this sense, a video lends itself much better than a written text.
More and more companies are realizing the potential of video, so together with the communication possibilities, competition also increases. This is why it is important to know how to improve the positioning of your videos in the YouTube SERP but, of course, also in Google. In fact, the synergistic communication of one’s brand through a YouTube channel and website, as we will see, can ensure that both realities mutually influence positioning in a positive way.
In particular, posting videos with relevant and interesting content could benefit all of your touchpoints. But let’s proceed step by step.
SEO on YouTube: how to promote the positioning of a video
Find the right keywords
First of all, before going into detail, it is good to specify that even on YouTube, as for any SEO strategy, before posting a content it is necessary to start with adequate keyword research. Only by identifying the most appropriate search terms, in fact, will we be able to intercept the users to whom our content wants to address.
To find keywords, in addition to helping you with automatic YouTube suggestions, you could use these keyword research tools:
- Ubersuggest : a free tool for finding “long tail” keys, also ideal for YouTube;
- Google Trends : allows you to deepen your search on Google Trends thanks to the “YouTube Search” item
- VidIQ : an extension that reveals for which keywords a video is positioned, the search volumes by keywords typed, etc .;
- TubeBuddy : allows you to analyze the tags used by competitors.
We advise you to target keywords that have at least a minimum of monthly searches (variable depending on the sector) and that, at the same time, are not too generic and highly competitive.
Optimize the video title on YouTube
The optimization of the title, through the insertion of the appropriate keywords, is to be considered – together with the description – the primary factor for the increase of the CTR (click through rate) , i.e. the number of clicks that the video receives in relation to the number of views, essential to define the “approval rating” of a video.
Remember, as always, that the main objective remains the satisfaction of the user’s needs, so it is essential that the titles are as “speaking” and descriptive of what will actually be shown in the video.
In order for a title to be optimized – not only for the YouTube SERP but also for Google – we recommend that you keep in mind some queries for which Google considers it more advantageous to show a video rather than a textual result:
- “How to do (+ Keyword)”: “How to make carbonara”
- Tutorial: “Eye makeup tutorial”
- Interviews: “Interview with Domenico Modugno”
- Reviews: “iPhone 11 Review”
- Sports related keywords: “Highlights Serie A”
- Keywords related to “funny videos”: “crazy and funny cats”
Optimize the description: because it can be useful to create an index of the contents
The description of a video on YouTube allows you to communicate the content of the video in a few lines and we advise you to make the most of it respecting criteria of clarity and readability, without ever losing sight of the user’s potential search intent. To make an effective and complete description, keep in mind to include these elements:
- Keyword: to promote positioning, keywords should be used above all in the very first lines of text, but without ever losing the naturalness of the message
- Hashtags (#) : use them wisely and sparingly, respecting relevance to the topic. They can be particularly useful if you are dealing with trending topics
- Links: insert links to related content, such as other videos or playlists, and above all to your website and social networks, so that it becomes easier to trace the various channels to the identity of a single brand
- Time indicators: for longer videos, which deal with more complex and diversified topics, you can include direct links in the description (automatically generated with the minutes: seconds formula) that refer to a specific section of the video. Next to each indicator you will insert a very short sentence that identifies the micro-topic covered in that portion of the video, further facilitating not only positioning, but also the speed and ease of use of the video, essential factors for a pleasant user experience
This last point becomes relevant especially now that Google has launched ” key moments “, a summary created on the basis of the time indications entered by the authors themselves in the information box (description), which contains the keywords relating to the specific moments of a video on YouTube .
The section showing this timeline is called “in this video” and allows users to click on a section, immediately reaching the portion of video of their interest.
Compliance with quality standards and strategies to reach a large number of users
It goes without saying, as with all types of content, that the first criterion to be respected must be quality. This means first of all posting videos that are interesting and pleasant to watch, possibly in high definition, with a montage that attracts attention and perhaps anticipated by a trailer that makes your brand immediately recognizable.
To increase views and increase the authority of the channel, it is important to engage users to ensure that they provide feedback such as likes and comments on your videos. The ideal would also be to obtain spontaneous sharing: if your videos will be able to arouse emotions or will be considered actually useful, users could voluntarily share them on their social networks.
Another tip is to add subtitles to your videos and spend some time reviewing them and make sure they reflect exactly what was said. This is important for two main reasons: on the one hand, it allows users with hearing impairments or simply unable to reproduce the audio at a given time to enjoy the videos; on the other hand, it makes it easier for the search engine to recognize the topics covered and to rank for the right keywords.
The tags and categories also contribute to the same purpose. The tags are words that describe the topics covered in the video and allow you to be reached even by those who do not follow your channel, but is interested in similar topics. The categories, on the other hand, are used to classify the contents of the video and can refer to the mode of use, for example “watch on mobile”, the creator of the video, “people or blog”, or to a classification relating to a musical or cinematographic genre, such as “documentary”.
Do YouTube videos impact a brand’s organic visibility?
Placing your brand on multiple channels in a coherent way is the ideal way to strengthen its identity. In addition to the use of the same name on all platforms, there are several obvious and non-obvious signs for users and search engines to link all of these channels to the same brand.
Obvious signals can be links that explicitly refer to the brand or Google social markup , or structured data markup capable of identifying social profiles as relevant to the same entity (use of the “same As” property).
There are also technically non-obvious signals that suggest to the search engine the identity of a subject or a brand, such as a mention of the brand name or any total or partial representation of the same through a photo or video; to understand, all those elements that allow the human mind to recognize an entity and that even Google is now able to identify.
Having said this, it will not be difficult to hypothesize that an intelligent use of YouTube can actually increase the authority of your brand and have an impact on its organic visibility, perhaps even allowing your site to rise in the SERP “by reflex”. It is not something that can be ascertained with mathematical certainty, but someone has already tried to ask the question with satisfactory results, as in the case of Emanuele Vaccaro.
Of course, the more recognizable, authoritative and reliable the brand is, the more likely it is that this will happen, even more easily if an uncompetitive market is intercepted that makes exposure for certain queries easier.
Here are some small tips to facilitate the process:
- use the same name, logo and slogan on each platform
- associate your site with the Google account through the advanced channel settings
- insert a link to the website from the video tabs (to do this you will need to join the YouTube Partner Program)
- create a text version of the video content and insert it on your website, perhaps integrating the video itself