Video SEO: 3 On-page Tactics and How to Automate Them

SEO is more than simply doing keyword research and selecting the most relevant keywords for your content. It's about giving search engines what they want in the format they want. If you can provide the right information, in the right format, then your content has a better chance of ranking.

The good news for those in video marketing is that search engines love video pages because people love video pages.

Video content offers an added opportunity to provide search engines with the specific information they're looking for. While there’s no way to ensure your videos show up first in search results, there are some proven strategies that can increase your click-through rate.

To have a successful video SEO strategy, you need three main things:

• Unique URLs for each video on your site domain
• Schema tags for each video on your page
• A video sitemap

1. Unique URLs

A single unique URL means you can share the unique URL via sitemaps, emails, or social media networks. That allows the search engine to follow and track that URL and to determine its value. Essentially, you’ve given your video its own address so search engines can track it no matter where it appears.

Creating unique URLs can be challenging as it requires you to re-structure how your webpages are named and built. This step can be troublesome as you’re probably not the only person or division with your company that uses your website.

2. Schema Tags

Some time ago, the major search engines agreed upon a standard set of tags, called schema, that you can use to describe the videos on your webpage. These are tags that you add to the code of your page in a specific format. This step allows the search engines to gather data from your website in a predictable and structured format (simply known as structured data).

We have a great tool that will pull metadata from your Brightcove account and add it as schema tags for you. However, this means that you’ll have to do this for each new video you embed on your site and re-do it for any existing videos.

3. Video Sitemaps

You can compile a list of your videos with their unique URLs and submit them as a sitemap to Google and other search engines. This action will trigger their bots to crawl your website and confirm that your videos are indeed on that page. If they happen to find schema tags on those pages, they’ll collect those additional details as well.

Once created, the next step is to submit the sitemap to Google. The challenge is as soon as you post a new video, you’re going to need to update and re-submit your doc to Google.

How to Automate Video SEO

Now that you understand the importance of unique URLs, schema tags, and sitemaps, the question is: How do you implement and maintain them (especially at scale)? Honestly, if you do this on your own, it’s going to take some work, but it will be worth it. Or you could simply let Brightcove Gallery manage all three of them for you.

Not only can you host and publish video portals, but any Brightcove Gallery site will automatically compile the video titles, video descriptions, and other metadata into a video sitemap and keep it up to date. It will also automatically embed schema tags on each page and give each video a unique URL without interfering with your corporate website. Many publishers report measurable improvement in their video discoverability after launching a Gallery page.

Whether you take a DIY approach or leverage Brightcove Gallery, unique URLs, schema tags, and sitemaps will help you optimize your videos and keep your brand in front of viewers when using the major search engines.