YouTube video marketing Bristol

Video SEO best practice

Marketing business video on YouTube and Google search?

 

Google search is the untapped platform when marketing YouTube video.  It generates keyword rich, targeted traffic that boosts video views, engagement and brand awareness.

For both client campaigns and personal projects, this tailored, organic approach has proven itself over and over.

 

 

YouTube channel marketing

 

Think of YouTube as a website and a YouTube channel as a webpage.

 

YouTube has enormous authority underpinned by Google ownership. This helps when optimising videos for organic traffic.

 

If your business would benefit from more views, subscribers, comments and shares, you’ll find this article helpful.

 

Most business channels struggle to get enough views to make an impact. In the early days, I would laboriously make video after video hoping that one would get traction, go viral and boost my subscription count from a few hundred to thousands.

 

But there’s a good case in point:

One good video can have dramatic impacts on a channel and its popularity. The brand, its video collections, social media channels and website will gain user attention from demographics that are meaningful to the messaging, products and services offered.

A single, successful video can change the face of a business.

Click the link for website seo in Bristol

 

 

Live YouTube SEO examples

In this screenshot see my video appearing number 1 in Google search:

The video does great in

YouTube too:

The appealing part of all this is a single video appearing for scores of keywords in both Google search and YouTube.

Related keywords drive traffic, video views, viewer comments and active subscribers.

I am one of the few YouTube video marketing consultants in Bristol and the UK that considers Google search as the finest traffic and revenue source for video.
Moreover, I provide this as a service to clients.

It’s not only YouTube but Vimeo, Dailymotion and a few others too. These video hosting platforms can be exploited for organic traffic in Google.

Video SEO best practices

Let’s keep with the theme of YouTube being a website and a channel being a web page. If this makes little sense email me for detail: seo@marcusrockey.co.uk  

 

Without a properly optimised channel, its videos will not appear well in YouTube which turns out to be fundamental to gaining traction in Google.

 

Best practice

Below I have outlined my process to YouTube video marketing:

 

Step 1

Run a full, manual audit of the existing channel and compile a list of tasks for best practice. This initial step has nothing to do with the videos currently uploaded within the channel. It’s a pure focus on meta-data, associated Google My Business, geo locations, backend settings, imagery, social profile linking and channel age.

Timeframe: 2-4 hours

 

YouTube SEO task list

Depending on the condition of the channel, optimisation to best practice is around 5 to 8 hours. This is managed in the first 2 weeks of a campaign.

 

Step 2

The following step is a manual audit of appending social channels like Google My Business, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication).

These channels play a vital role in my strategy by the ways in which they link with each other, how and where the video appears in each profile and their relationship to their parent website.

Audit timeframe: 1-2 hours – I compile a further list of actions to bring the channels in line with best practice.

 

Implementing timeframe: 3-5 hours
Businesses tend to have one or two social channels that work best. A yoga studio may do well with Instagram whilst a franchised car dealer prefers Facebook.

 

Social optimisation has three outcomes:

1. To help those channels appear on page 1 of Google via a brand search (when the business name is typed into Google or variations of the name)
2. To support channel authority
3. To increase website traffic and user retention

 

This adds up to the YouTube channel and social media best practice complete in the first 30 days of any campaign.

 

 

Video SEO optimisation

 

Existing channel videos

Clients often have promotion or education video that’s already added to their channel. There may have been significant investment in its production that is dictating the need to be optimised ahead of new video material.

 

Common scenario

The video was uploaded, didn’t get much traction in way of views, likes, comments or subscribers. The client wants to change all that through proper video optimisation.

 

YouTube test advertising

Noteworthy here, running a targeted YouTube advert campaign to the target demographic. This step is relatively easy to set up with a small budget. This opening strategy tests video engagement and desired outcomes (subscribers, likes, shares, hops to the parent website etc).

Once in front of the target audience, we can draw some analysis on the conversion qualities:

 

• Does the video get solid retention?
• Are viewers liking and subscribing?
• At what stage in the video do viewers drop off (would a trimmed version yield an improved outcome)?
• Have users stayed within the channel and looked at other video content?
• Is the parent website inheriting a percentage of video traffic to its related content or contact pages?

 

YouTube advertising can help answer such questions and determine if an organic video SEO campaign is going to bring about increased brand awareness and/or return on investment (ROI).

 

YouTube AdWords set up is £400.
That’s a one time fee.
An advertising budget of as little as £250 can provide some excellent insight into the video conversion qualities.

 

Back to YouTube SEO

Part of my SEO strategy is optimising video prior to upload. This reduces future workload and investment by 5%.

Optimising a video that is already uploaded into the channel needs a bit more work than a local file.

Therefore, existing channel video SEO is a bit more expensive.

 

New video optimisation (unique content)

It is preferable to work with a unique video that is yet to be added to YouTube or any other video hosting platform. Local files allow me to deploy full file optimisation prior to upload and can play a key role.

 

 

Off-page video SEO development

For some local, low competition keyword phrases, off page work needn’t be too extensive. This is further supported by a properly-optimised channel.

However, most clients want YouTube video SEO because the phrases they need to rank for are either national and/or competitive.

 

 

There are two predominant types of off-page video optimisation

Backlinks

A clickable incoming hyperlink from one page to another. In this case, I’m talking about a link from a webpage to the video. It’s also good when one video links to another provided they are acutely relevant to one and other.

With extensive test sequences, it is backlinks that matter when I need a video ranking in Google search results for chosen keywords (like my example at the top of this article)

 

• Links distribute authority and ‘link juice’ or ‘link power’ to the video
• Links are essential for ranking video in Google search for competitive keywords

Keep in mind, backlinks are impactful after the channel and local video file are properly optimised. You can still achieve medium results with pure link power but it burns money unneccessarily and its more work.

 

The next vital component in this process is relevancy.

It is no longer enough to have any strong website linking out to a video. The appending webpage needs to be relevant.
If the video subject matter is about ‘personal training’ then the linking webpage needs to be related by health, well-being, fitness, gyms etc. The more closely related the better.

 

Linking a legal website to a health and fitness video does not work. In my book, that’s spam.

 

 

Embedded video

You may have seen YouTube’s share feature that allows anyone to grab an embed code and paste the video into any web page, social media profile, forum or third-party video hosting platform

Video embeds support rankings in YouTube itself. They also play a support role in highlighting the popularity and shareability of a video.

Similar to backlink requirements, a video must be embedded on relevant, related webpages. Embeds need to appear as natural as possible. Their velocity is a science based on some of the items I’ll list below.

 

Velocity (speed and volume)

Embeds and link velocity is dependent on some important strategy. Some of them are:

 

1. The niche or industry
2. SEO goals i.e. international, national or local optimisation
3. Keyword competitiveness
4. The number of people searching with those keywords per month on YouTube and Google
5. Others

 

The video (s)

Optimising an existing YouTube video costs £399 per month (local), £799 per month (national)

These prices are not fixed. Ranking on page one for ‘weigh loss supplements’ is costly compared to ‘best boutique hotel in Cornwall’.

Depending on the industry and keywords phrase, the video can appear on page 1 of both YouTube and Google search.

• For YouTube, general timeframes to page 1 range between 2 and 4 months
• For Google, timeframes range between 6 and 8 months

There is a 3-month contingency period added with both methods of ranking.

Monthly fees are client contribution towards valuable backlinks and video embeds plus my profit margin.

 

Completion date agreement

All of my SEO work includes a final completion date.

 

Point A is the starting place. The video may already be within YouTube or a file on a local computer or cloud

Point B is the end goal. Page 1 or the top of YouTube and/or Google search for an agreed keyword group

 

Tracking the project

I use Basecamp for all client projects.

It is comparative to a private Facebook page. All items that contribute to the SEO campaign are held in Basecamp. This includes dates when tasks will be completed.

After task completion, clients are notified by email.

Video files, images, social profile logins, articles, documents, and general discussion take place in Basecamp.

 

Basecamp supports my accountability and provides clients with a clear picture of where investment has been spent and what is going on from one week to the next.

Reports

I’ve become a little wary of overly detailed or elaborate monthly reports, so much so that I no longer offer them. PDF documents and spreadsheets do not generally help my clients move nearer to their business objectives.

Basecamp has a knack for connecting the dots by presenting all project information in a clear, timely and visual manner.

 

Ranking reports

Clients are sent regular ranking reports. Ranking and traffic increases are a leading way of presenting growth and money well spent.

These are recorded in Basecamp.

 

If interested, get in touch with me via email. We can set up a call or meet.

seo@marcusrockey.co.uk

 

Marcus Rockey
Google & YouTube SEO