Edward GeorgeSo you’re all excited about your shiny new video. It’s all finished and you’re looking forward to the results and the benefits of corporate video. Surely things couldn’t get any better?! What if I told you I could dramatically increase your chances of your video being featured on the first page of Google search results for one of your targeted keywords?
Well I can! The below example ranked on page one of Google for ‘Video Production Stroud’ within 4 minutes of me uploading it to YouTube. Simply follow my few simple steps and you really will be in with a great chance of ranking your video on page one.
My video on page one of Google, is it achievable?
It really is, it all revolves around optimising your video file before and after you have uploaded it. This then gives Google the extra information it needs to truly understand your video and what it is about. Only when Google can do this will your video rank well in it’s search results.
OK, where do I start?
Keywords! Hopefully you have already done some keyword research for your website. Pick out a couple of keywords which you think the video would make sense to rank for. If you haven’t had a chance to do any keyword research yet then simply think about what you want your video to rank for when users search Google. For example purposes I am going to use; ‘Video Production Stroud’ as my main keyword.
It is worth noting at this point that the more competitive the keyword, the harder it is to rank for. So for example, the chances are very slim to rank our video for the keyword ‘Video Production’ because it is a major keyword which numerous businesses and websites are competing for. Our example; ‘Video Production Stroud’ is far less competitive due to its more targeted and niche nature, making it easier to rank for as a result. If you are unsure about how easy it is to rank for a keyword then check out Semrush’s Keyword Difficulty Tool.
Page one video rankings are all about optimisation
Optimisation is crucial and helps give Google the extra edge in understanding exactly what your video is about. The first thing to do is to navigate to your video file on your computer and right click (Command Click on a Mac) and bring up the file’s ‘Properties’ (Get Info), this will then allow you to add various pieces of information to the file such as Title, Subtitle, Tags and comments to the video. By doing this you are giving Google the extra information it needs to understand what your video is about and where it should be ranked. Check out the image below to see the same video with it correctly optimised on the right and incorrectly optimised on the left.
You can see I have changed the name/title to ‘Video Production Stroud – Video My Business’ and the subtitle to ’We make video production in Stroud possible!’. Following on from this I have given the video a 5* rating and used the following tags ‘video production stroud; video production; promotional video; business video; promotional video production; ‘ . By adding all of this information we are dramatically increasing our chances of being ranked.
What next?
You’re nearly there now; all you need to do is head on over to YouTube and upload your video to your channel. While your swanky new video is uploading, use the time to repeat the previously used, titles and tags (keywords) in the video information boxes as below.
It is always valuable to write a complete and keyword optimised description for your video as well as giving a backlink back to your website. In this case I have made sure to use our main keyword; ‘Video Production Stroud’ at least twice in the description. Once you’ve added all the right information, hit ‘Publish’ and sit back and relax.
Time to celebrate!
Our example shown above featured on the first page of Google UK for the search term ‘Video Production Stroud’ within 4 minutes of the video uploading… RESULT!
So there, it really is as easy as that. Now all you need to do is give it 48 hours to see if Google ranks your video for your keyword. Unfortunately there are no guarantees but if you’re finding your efforts to be unsuccessful then you can always re-target the video to a different set of keywords and upload it again. Just keep trying and don’t give up!
DISCLAIMER: I can not guarantee this will work. I have successfully recreated this process on several occasions with a 100% success rate, however please bear in mind that we are at the discretion of Google here and I unfortunately can’t make any promises.
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