Tips for Local SEO And Youtube Videos
There was a really interesting and in depth article over at Search Engine Land recently about ways to use Youtube to rank your small business website. Some of the suggestions I agree with wholeheartedly while others I find a bit more dubious. In any case, here’s my response:
1) Geotag Your Video: Yes, yes and yes. It makes a ton of sense, especially since Google is showing more localized results seemingly by the day. No, this information doesn’t seem to be playing a hugely important role in ranking now, but doesn’t this seem like something that is going to end up being more important as time goes by?
2) Link To Your Business in the Description: I don’t know if no-follow links pass any value or not when it comes to SEO, but from the standpoint of an end user, wouldn’t a link be both helpful and expected if you watched an informative video?
3) Include Your Contact Information: Ok, so part of this is clearly generational. If I watch a really cool video by a local chiropractor, I still won’t call for an appointment, however, I’d probably email them or hopefully use an online version of their appointment system. That being said, if my mother in law found a Youtube video she’d absolutely call and ask for an appointment from that same chiropractor! Why choose only one potential market if you don’t have to?
4) Include Your Name, Phone Number etc in the video audio: I think this all makes sense from a marketing stand point right? Of course, we also now know that Google creates written copies of the words you use to help rank your video. Can this count as a citation? Maybe and worth the time don’t you think?
5)Utilize the Description: Umm, yeah why wouldn’t you? If we’ve learned anything about search engine’s in 2013 and beyond it is that they want more and more content seemingly by the day. If there’s space to write something, why wouldn’t you?
6) Tag Your Video: Again a no-brainer. In my own niche, wine clubs most of the videos being produced are being made by affiliates. If someone watches a review of one of my wine club shipments being opened, then why wouldn’t I want them to also watch video of the winemakers who made that wine, being interviewed by me?
7) Associate the Video With Your Google Places Listing: Anything that Google might associate with a property that they show on the 1st page, makes sense no?
8) Associate with Your Google + Page: We all know that the only people who actually use Google + these days are SEO’s, but I think we know the search engine is probably going to love these links even more as time goes by.
9) Embed Your Video: If I make a video about my rational reaction to events in Syria, it doesn’t get embedded anything. A viral cat video gets embedded thousands of times, I think we all know those embed’s help show Google that the video should be ranked well because people find it interesting.
10) Promote Your Video: I think the real question is how many video’s you are making? One per day? Yeah there isn’t enough time. One per week? Maybe. One per month, yes sir!
Mark Aselstine is the owner of Uncorked Ventures, an online wine club based just outside of San Francisco. Yes, he handles SEO himself these days because paying $1500 a month for an ROI of 0 got old pretty quickly. There are great SEO providers out there, you just have to know where to look!