Engage Your Audience with These Video SEO Best Practices

What is Video SEO?

Video SEO (search engine optimization) is the practice of improving the visibility and ranking of your videos on search engine results pages (SERPs). This involves optimizing both the video itself and the surrounding web page to help your content surface higher in search results.

Key elements of effective video SEO include:

• Providing structured data: Use schema markup to help search engines understand your video’s content and context.
• Optimizing video metadata: Craft clear, keyword-rich titles and descriptions to improve discoverability.
• Ensuring video accessibility: Include transcripts and captions to make your content accessible and indexable.
• Analyzing performance: Use analytics tools to measure how your video pages are performing and refine your strategy accordingly.

Video SEO marketing on YouTube and other video platforms

Considering that YouTube has over a billion unique visitors per month and is the second largest search engine behind Google, your video marketing strategy clearly starts with YouTube.

Greg Jarboe, the president and co-founder of SEO-PR states that “if you are not on YouTube, the odds that your video will be found are low”.  Consider that in addition to Google video searches, which favor YouTube videos over others, YouTube itself has its own separate search engine from Google.

YouTube is an enclosed social ecosystem in and of itself where people go specifically with the intention of looking for video. Jarboe notes that there are many benefits to using other video platforms, but warns that you should “not avoid YouTube”.

It’s important to distinguish between video SEO and YouTube SEO. While video SEO focuses on getting videos hosted on your own website to rank in Google and other search engines, YouTube SEO is about increasing the visibility of your videos within YouTube’s internal search. If your goal is to increase traffic to your website, prioritize video SEO techniques that optimize your on-site content, rather than focusing solely on YouTube optimization.

Rand Fishkin, founder of MOZ, notes that it is important to distribute your video on YouTube to tap into the active video searches there, but to not neglect the value of video that resides on your own site. There are a lot of people searching on YouTube for educational content, but video content on your site can earn a lot of links which can help you rank for that content as well.

“At MOZ, we have a video series called Whiteboard Friday and we film those weekly. Those videos get a lot of traffic and they drive a lot of value for our web site. So we want that traffic to stay on our web site. We know that we can convert people into our community account and get them to subscribe to us and get them to share and amplify our content.”

So if garnering an audience on YouTube does not exclude you from gaining a more diverse audience on your own website using Vimeo, Wistia, Brightcove, or Vidyard, why limit the distribution channels to just your site and YouTube?

Consider LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and other social media platforms for additional ways to get your video content out there.

By embracing both on-site video SEO tactics and broad distribution across platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you maximize opportunities for your content to be discovered and shared—whether your audience is searching on Google, browsing YouTube, or scrolling through their favorite social feed.

Rand Fishkin also suggests investing in paid sources to boost content that shows high assisted or direct conversion rates. If your video content drives desired actions on your website, paid promotion can increase its traffic.

Key Elements of an Indexable Video Page

To help search engines recognize and rank your video pages, a few critical pieces need to be in place. Think of these as the foundation that turns a simple video post into an SEO powerhouse.

1. Crawlable Video Player

Your video player must be easy for search engine bots to find and crawl. Avoid burying your player deep within tabs, scrollers, or pop-ups that require action to reveal the video. Ideally, the video should be embedded right near the top of your page, making it immediately visible during the initial load. This ensures search engines can see and index both the video itself and its relevant metadata.

Platforms such as Vimeo, Wistia, Brightcove and Vidyard are generally built to be search-engine friendly, but always double-check their embedding options for best results. Ensuring your videos are easy to find—by audience members and search engines alike—lays the groundwork for improved visibility and increased engagement.

2. Video as the Page’s Core Focus

Search engines want to send visitors to pages where the featured video is the main attraction. To signal to search engines (and visitors!) that your video is the main event, place the video player front and center—ideally right at the top of your page, so it’s clearly visible as soon as someone lands there.

Minimize distractions on the page—keep additional text brief, offering just a descriptive title and perhaps a transcript right below. Avoid cluttering the space with other images or embedding multiple videos on the same page. The goal is for the video to stand out as the hero, rather than getting lost in a sea of other content or visuals.

If your video lands on a page packed with lots of copy or product images (think lengthy blog posts or busy e-commerce pages), search engines are less likely to treat that page as truly video-focused. For the best SEO results, design clean, purpose-driven video pages where the visual content takes the lead. This approach aligns with user expectation—when they click a video result, they should land on a page where the video takes center stage.

3. Structured Data for Better Search Visibility

Structured data, such as schema markup, acts like a roadmap for search engines by detailing important elements about your video. This includes:

• Title and description
• Thumbnail image
• Video or media file location (URL)
• Captions or a transcript
• Duration and upload date

Adding extra attributes, such as key moments (video chapters), can allow your content to take up more space in search results, giving viewers direct links to the most interesting parts of your video.

Ways to Add Structured Data

• JSON-LD: Clean, separate from your HTML, and preferred by Google. Works nicely with most content management systems.
• Microdata: Useful if you want to tie data directly to your video embed within the HTML.
• XML Video Sitemaps: Especially helpful if your site isn’t regularly updated but still wants to highlight new or important videos.

Pro Tip: By combining an accessible player, clear emphasis on your video, and well-implemented structured data, you set up your video page to be search engine friendly—no matter which hosting platform you choose. No matter which method you choose, double-check everything with Google’s Rich Results Test or Search Console to make sure it’s working as you intended.

Optimize Video Titles and Descriptions

While transcripts are crucial, don’t overlook the power of your video’s title and description. Treat these as editorial content—avoid using placeholder text or export file names. Instead, craft compelling, keyword-rich titles and descriptions that reflect the core topic of your video. Your goal is to engage the viewer while also signaling relevance to search engines. For example, rather than a generic title like “SEO Tips,” try something more enticing and specific, such as “Boost Your Website Traffic with These Proven SEO Strategies!” Engaging titles not only improve click-through rates but also help your videos stand out in search results.

Create Eye-Catching and Clickable Thumbnails

The thumbnail acts as your video’s billboard—make it count. High-quality, clickable thumbnails can dramatically increase your impression-to-click rate, which in turn signals value to search engines. Since thumbnails in search results are often quite small, keep text and graphics minimal yet bold, ensuring they’re easy to see and compelling enough to invite clicks.

Consider creating custom thumbnails that match the intent and tone of your video content, ensuring consistency and recognizability across platforms. Take the time to test various thumbnails and see what resonates best with your audience—think of A/B testing not just for titles, but for visuals as well.

Leverage Video Galleries for Broader Indexation

If you have a series of related videos, consider organizing them into a gallery. This allows each video to have its own unique URL, giving every piece a better chance to be indexed separately and appear in relevant search results.

With individual URLs, each video can:

• Be optimized with distinct titles, descriptions, and metadata, tailored specifically for relevant search queries.
• Accumulate its own backlinks and engagement, which over time helps boost its search authority.
• Appear as a standalone result in Google, increasing your total visibility and opportunities to attract clicks.

Ultimately, using video galleries is an effective tactic for surfacing multiple pieces of video content in search results, ensuring your audience finds exactly the information—or entertainment—they’re seeking.

Video Transcription

Video SEO best practices include creating a transcription for your video. “Make sure that you are providing a transcript. That text content is very important to Google,” Fishkin said. Jarboe agreed and suggested taking it a step further by adding sub-heads to the transcript, giving some ability to optimize that content to be found in search.

Video SEO marketing with keyword targeting

Fishkin suggests, “Search out what people are actually looking for. You can use tools like AdWords or Ubersuggest. You can use a tool like moz.com/explorer, our keyword explorer tool. Then you can figure out, there are actually people searching for this phrase, I should make some content—I think video is the best way to convey that. I think search engines will rank that highly.”

Duplicate Content on Different Distribution Channels

Having the same video on your website and YouTube will not negatively impact search engine rankings, as they are distinct search engines. It’s also acceptable to post the same video on multiple pages within your own site, as Google treats videos like common elements (images, menus) that appear across various pages without penalty. This flexibility allows you to maximize visibility without harming SEO. When posting on different venues, consider A/B testing different thumbnails and titles for the same video.

How Videos Appear in Web Search Results

Videos can appear in web search results in a few key formats:

• Video snippets: These are variations of standard Google search results, displaying a website link with a title, video thumbnail, publish date, and sometimes a brief description. Google often groups three or more high-ranking videos, which users can expand.
• Featured video results: For clear answers to user queries, Google may highlight a single video as a featured result with a larger thumbnail and greater visibility.

While XML video sitemaps used to enable rich snippet markup from your website, Google has diminished this value, giving YouTube an advantage.

Video Authority and Optimal Video Length

Google considers video length as a component of quality, with longer content often seen as more authoritative. This aligns with YouTube’s “watch time” factor and blog content, where longer articles (e.g., 2000 words vs. 600 words) tend to outrank shorter ones. This doesn’t mean adding filler; rather, focus on quality spoken content. Jarboe suggests a 15-minute video is now an ideal length, shifting from the past perception of 2-3 minutes.

Tracking Your Video SEO Performance

Measuring your videos’ performance is crucial for improvement. Use these tools and reports:

1. Monitoring with Google Search Console:

   • Index Coverage: Check reports to see which video pages are successfully indexed and identify any errors (e.g., “video is not the main content of the page”). If errors occur, rework your page layout to highlight the video.
   • Structured Data Reports: Verify that correct metadata (titles, thumbnails) is being picked up, and troubleshoot any display issues.

2. Measuring Traffic and Engagement with Google Analytics 4:

   • Segment Video Traffic: Use GA4’s “Organic Video” session channel group to isolate traffic from video-related search results (Google Video Search, YouTube).
   • Drill Down Further: Analyze metrics like sessions, bounce rate, average engagement time, and conversions from video users. Compare this data with other acquisition sources to understand the value of your video audience. Filter reports by keywords, URLs, or specific search appearance types.

3. Refining Your Approach:

   Regularly review these reports to spot trends in topics, video lengths, or formats that attract more viewers. Use these insights to refine your strategy, doubling down on what works and rethinking what doesn’t.

Ultimately, tracking is about understanding how your video content fits into the larger search ecosystem and using data to make smarter decisions. Always remember the most important aspect: provide value for the viewer.