Over the last couple of years a lot of small businesses have been moving to video marketing as a way to generate news leads for their businesses. This is because videos are visual and can easily be viewed on the go which is where a large number of us are viewing the internet now. This article will show you how you can use video SEO services provided by search engine optimization companies like Otman Associates to rank your video and begin generating new leads.

Google and Yahoo are putting more emphasis on videos in their search results, which means that currently is it much easier to rank a video quickly as compared to ranking a website for the same search term. This is good news for a lot of businesses who want to use video marketing as a sales generation or lead generation method. So whether you are a lawyer, plumber, real estate agent, retail store or just a website owner, you can benefit tremendously from getting your videos ranked highly on search engines for your key search phrases.

What Is A Ranked Video?

A ranked video is when your video shows up on the first page of Google or YouTube for your targeted search phrase. Depending on how competitive the search term is, your video may rank even without using video SEO services. For example if you type “InStyle Dental San Gabriel Reviews” in Google.com you will see this:

Or if you type “Storm Damage Repair Arlington” in Google.com you will see this:

Each video contains a phone number that a customer can call immediately, making them an ideal lead generation source for any business, be it a lawyer that needs new clients or a plumber that needs new local leads. The great thing about these types of leads is that the customers/clients are BUYING MODE when they make the phone call, otherwise they wouldn’t be calling.

So what does it take to get your video ranked as well? Here are a few key things you will need to do.

Video Title and Keyword Phrases (on Page SEO)

Perhaps the single biggest mistake that video marketers make is only targeting one keyword on their videos. You can target up to three keywords so it best to use all of them. Before you create your video title you need to know which keywords you will be targeting.

For example, let’s say you are an interior decorator based in Brampton, Ontario and want to target local customers in your area. The keywords that come to mind are:

Interior Decorator Brampton Ontario – Interior Designer Brampton Ontario – Home Décor Brampton

By doing this you give your video a chance to rank for all three relevant search phrases instead of one. Remember to always put your main keyword first, followed by your secondary keyword and then your least important keyword last. You also want to make sure your title and keywords match your tags. You can include other relevant tags, but make sure your primary keyword and secondary keywords have tags.

Relevant Backlinks

The next important thing you need for your video to rank is relevant backlinks. A backlink is simply when another website or video links to your video. For example, you may link to your video from your business website; this will create a relevant backlink. The reason why backlinks are important is because they are a measure of popularity of your video. The more backlinks your video has, the more Google and YouTube see your video as popular and therefore the higher your video ranks on their search engines.

Another important factor with backlinks is that the links have to be diverse. For example, not all links can use the exact same phrases because Google will see that as keyword spam and penalize the video. A penalty usually reduces the importance of your video and therefore it’s ranking.

Video Views

Next you will need to get “retention views”. A retention view is when someone watches your video for more than 30 seconds before moving on to the next video.  A lot of people rarely spend more than 10 seconds on a majority of videos on YouTube; the average is between 15 to 30 seconds. Retention views imply that you video is interesting enough to be viewed, and this increases its ranking on the search engine results.

There are several ways to get quality views; first you can do it yourself by sending an email to all your customers to check out your new video with the relevant link included.  Or you can use our video SEO services where we get the retention views you need for your video.

Comments On Your Video

It’s a good idea to get some comments to your video as well. It really doesn’t matter whether they are positive or negative, but obviously positive comments are better. What is really important is that they are natural and authoritative comments. There are services you can purchase online to get comments but in most cases those types of comments can hurt your rankings especially if there is a lot of competition for that keyword.

You can get comments the same way as you got your views by simply asking some of your customers to view and leave a comment on your video. If you work with us or another SEO Expert, we will provide all the above services, from the Onpage SEO, the relevant backlinks, the retention views and comments for you. We can even help you get the video done if you don’t already have one.

Give us a call if you would like to start using video marketing as a source for generating new leads for your business.

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