Videos are appearing on the top of Google these days.
You have probably noticed this. The market analysts Forrester Research certainly has, and recently discovered a video was over 50 times more likely than a standard web page to be on the top of the search engines.
Like to have a video about your business up there? Well, here’s a simple way to make one and and get it on to the top.
My background in commercial video
First, though, let me say that for several years I made commercial videos for organisations in Asia and the Middle East. And I still vividly remember the thrill that comes from shooting and editing video projects, although I’ve been out of that business and back here in New Zealand working at Internet marketing for 12 years or so.
The good news is you don’t have to have anything like this much background to make a video and get it onto page one of Google.
What Google thinks about video
The search engine giant seems to be “relaxed” about what it accepts as a video. So you can use video footage, like I used to in Asia. But you can also use something very easy like a power point presentation. Or go for something in between these two, like a screen capture presentation. (Try a free utility from camstudio.org)
OK. Next, Google can’t (yet) “read” a video and must rely on things like the title you give it. So this gives you an immediate advantage. Write a title that includes your keyword.
Special Google video site map
But there’s more you can do. Make a special video site map and submit it through Google’s Webmaster Tools. Google has a lot of helpful information about this. But essentially your site map will tell Google the title you’ve given the video, describe it briefly, give the web address of the page where people see it, a thumbnail and the location of the uploaded video (probably youtube or vimeo).
Do this. Because Google says, “without these five pieces of information, Google cannot surface your videos in our results.”
And that’s it!
Your next step
Go and make some videos, show the search engine where they are and what keywords they are about, and watch for them to rise up onto the top of Google.
Before you do that, though, tell me what you think about using video for SEO. Tell me about your experience. Have you noticed that videos are getting onto the top of Google? Leave a comment now. I’m interested in what you think.