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An impressive 96% of marketers view video as an important part of their marketing strategy. This is the highest number witnessed in the last eight years.
Image via Wyzowl
It shows that videos continue to gain strength as an important part of marketing.
But posting videos on your WordPress website is not enough.
You need to apply effective WordPress video SEO strategies to ensure your videos are getting in front of the right audience—people who would be interested in buying your products or services.
To achieve this, you need to think of video SEO separately from your general WordPress website optimization.
But like any other search engine optimization strategies, WordPress video SEO also helps with:
- Providing users with an optimal user experience
- Making it easy for search engines to find and index your content
- Meeting user intent
Improving your WordPress video SEO strategy will ensure your videos rank high on search engines for relevant keywords to bring in more high-quality traffic to your site.
Let’s look at some of the essential steps you can take to optimize your videos and outrank your competitors on SERP.
5 Strategies for Effective WordPress Video SEO
Before you start making efforts to improve your WordPress video SEO, conduct an SEO audit and a CRO audit to find out the current performance of your website and videos.
Once you have a clear idea of what needs to be improved, then move to implement the video SEO strategies listed in this post.
Here are 5 strategies to improve the ranking of videos on your WordPress site.
1. Publish High-Quality and Valuable Videos
One of the major factors affecting your WordPress video SEO performance is the level of engagement your videos get.
If your videos get a high watch time and click-through rate, and low bounce rate, it’s an indication to search engines that users find your video content relevant to their search query.
It boosts your SERP rankings.
One way to improve your WordPress video SEO to get more engagement is to post high-quality videos.
Start by making your videos valuable and entertaining. They should compel your target audience to watch till the end.
Get creative with your delivery. Slack, for instance, uses animation in this video to show how Slack is better than email.
Image via Slack
It turns a boring topic into an entertaining and informative video.
An extra advantage of posting valuable videos is that other high-quality websites will link to your videos if they find them useful.
Getting high-quality backlinks boosts your WordPress video SEO. It tells search engines that other authoritative websites find your video valuable, which makes you rank higher.
Your video editing should also be top-notch.
Understand how you want your audience to feel and think when watching your video. You can use the right video editing tools, such as Movavi Video Editor and Animoto, to make edits, such as adding the right music, transitions, filters, and CTAs.
2. Use Video Schema Markup to Boost Your WordPress Video SEO
Schema markup is important for WordPress video SEO as it helps search engines find the videos on your WordPress site.
It enables search engines to understand the content in your videos, which helps them show your videos for relevant search queries. And this ensures your videos meet search intent.
Using video schema markup also powers rich snippets.
Rich snippets are Google search results that show additional information besides what is stored in the meta description.
They’re enriched page descriptions that stand out from the regular search results, which increases their probability of getting clicks from users.
Google picks rich snippets from structured data markup stored in the HTML code of a webpage.
Here’s an example of a rich snippet on a search results page. And in this case, it’s enriched with a video.
Image via Google
When your WordPress video shows up in rich snippets, users who prefer videos to text will click on your web page.
You can use third-party schema generating tools like Attrock Schema Markup Generator and Schema to add video schema markup to your site.
3. Add Video Captions
Captions are the text version of the audio in your videos that you generate by creating a video transcript. They make your videos accessible to viewers who prefer watching your video in silence and those with hearing disabilities.
But with regards to WordPress video SEO, video transcripts make it easier for search bots to scan and index your videos.
Since search engines can’t watch or listen to your videos, the text transcript acts as a crawlable page copy.
Here’s an example of a video by Daily Paws with captions.
Image via Daily Paws
Besides boosting your search engine visibility, using captions boosts your click-through rate.
Enabling search engines to understand the content of your videos better means you’ll show up in search results of relevant search queries. And if your content is what the user is searching for, they’re likely to click on your WordPress web page in the SERP.
You can create video subtitles manually using an SRT file. Or you can use a WordPress plugin like Wubtitle.
4. Optimize Your WordPress Video Titles and Descriptions
Optimizing your video titles and descriptions is another effective WordPress video SEO strategy.
An optimized title and description tell search engines the content and context of your video, which increases your SERP visibility. And when the title and description are engaging, it encourages users to click on your video.
Here is how to create great titles and descriptions for better WordPress video SEO:
- Create unique and intriguing titles and descriptions, and avoid being generic
- Keep them vivid and descriptive without being overly long
- Integrate keywords into your titles and descriptions
- Mention the value the video provides
- Ensure the first two lines of your video description are particularly captivating because it shows up in search results
- Integrate the best AI-powered chatbot on your website to respond to customer comments on your website videos.
As for the keywords, ensure you’re using relevant keywords that your target audience is actually searching for.
There are plenty of tools you can use for your keyword research, such as Semrush and Ahrefs.
5. Optimize Your Videos for Mobile
As of the fourth quarter of 2022, mobile devices accounted for 59.16% of website traffic globally. So you can expect most of your traffic to come from mobile devices.
If users viewing your videos on a small screen see videos that are stretched and disproportionate, your bounce rate will be high.
Google aims to serve its users and only refers to websites that provide a great user experience. A high bounce rate indicates your page isn’t providing the best user experience, which affects your ranking.
First, you need to ensure that you’re using a responsive WordPress theme. Then use a WordPress plugin like Jetpack VideoPress to ensure the videos you embed on your website are mobile responsive.
Ready to Enhance Your WordPress Video SEO?
It’s time to take your WordPress video SEO seriously. It’ll boost your website traffic and conversions.
The steps you need to take are simple:
- Post high-quality and engaging videos
- Pay extra attention to your video titles and descriptions
- Take advantage of video schema markup
- Include video captions
- Make your videos mobile responsive
Apply these WordPress video SEO tips and improve your rankings.
