Inside Video SEO: Interview with Joe Edakkunnathu

In short, Joe helps us build our brand presence online. His guidance helps us introduce our content and website to more people; introduce this blog post to more people.

I had an opportunity to sit down with Joe and pick his expert-brain on the subject of Search Engine Optimization and especially how it relates to video production.

Before we dig in to the details, here are ‘Joe’s Top 5 Pro Tips for Video SEO’

1. Create something unique and interesting or helpful for your audience vs. trying to sell
2. Make sure the video title is interesting, properly describe it in the desription, tag with keywords
3. Be sure to include your website, phone number or social media links within your video description
4. Commenting on other videos related to your niche can help increase the views of your videos
5. When promoting your YouTube channel on your site or outside of YouTube, use the Google/YouTube preferred method of your profile url: http://www.youtube.com/user/YOURCHANNELNAME [rather than www.youtube.com/YOURCHANNELNAME]

Let’s talk to the expert

SOLIDLINE: You’re the expert, so I’d love to just let you talk and shower us with your knowledge. Could you tell us about the process of SEO for video?

JOE: I guess there are really two potential strategies in terms of optimization. The first is trying to create videos that come up more often in searches on video sites themselves, like YouTube. Another strategy is to use YouTube videos specifically to boost your rank on Google. Although these results are not consistent across all keywords and industries.

SLM: How would the first strategy work?

JOE: I’d recommend creating unique and interesting content about your niche rather than trying to sell. Tips, tricks and how-tos can get a lot of views, especially if you’re humorous. Getting unique video content that is interesting to your niche will attract visitors.

Once you have the video it is important to optimize the title, make sure it is in the correct category of videos, include a description and tag it with relevant keywords. Searchability. Finally, include a url or company logo and your company contact information at the end of the video or in a watermark. This strategy relies on the flow of traffic from YouTube to ultimately promote your website, phone number or social links, so you need to make your brand clear.

SLM: Do you have an example of a campaign that did this very well?

JOE: There is a reason everyone remembers the old Blendtec blenders “Will it Blend?” campaign. Their pseudo-educational type videos demonstrate the power of their products by destroying everyday objects. It has been quite effective.

SLM: What about that other strategy?

JOE: You can try to use your YouTube videos to “help” your rank on Google by embedding YouTube based videos within relevant pages on your site. You should add these videos to site pages where the keywords on the page are similar to the keywords in the video. These keywords should be the ones you are trying to rank higher with on Google and some of which should be in your video’s title.

Finally, create what is called a “video sitemap.” This will guide search engine spiders to the videos on the pages. It looks messy and complicated but Google has a guide on how to create one.

If you can get your video thumbnail to show up in a keyword search, you can really enhance your site exposure.