We all know the growth of video content online is huge and we’ve talked here about how video can be used to both promote properties and individuals or agencies. Internet users are consuming and producing video content at a rapid rate as it can be such an effective way of conveying a message.

But not all of the videos online are good - in fact, actual content aside, the majority of it is really badly produced and published. Thank goodness you can’t find most of it unless you’re given the direct page link!

It’s easy to shoot some imagery and upload a video but how do you expect potential customers to find it? How can you engage with those who don’t know you exist yet? The answer is search engine marketing. We know that search engines index and rank text on a webpage, but currently it is much more difficult for them to index content inside a video.

Here are propertyadguru.com’s Top 10 Tips for Video Marketing/SEO:

1. Make sure users can comment, rate and provide feedback on your videos. Allowing users to provide feedback results in greater views for your video. Users who provide comments are also those who usually take action - these are good people to be engaging in conversations.

2. If you have to use it, work around Flash. Whilst using a flash player on your site is the easiest way to enable video, this format is nearly impossible for search engines to read and register. So, use another format if possible. If not, be sure to implement some of these other tips to help with SEO.

3. Create a video sitemap for all your video content. Search engines can read these well and will easily and quickly index all of your video content.

4. Surround your video with relevant text. Include as much relevant text as possible around the actual video itself - you might like to provide a transcript of the video with lots of keywords included.

5. Use the most important, obvious word: video. When people use search engines to find videos on particular topics they commonly use the word ‘video’. Make sure you use the words ‘video’ and ‘videos’ in your meta data, description, text and title. eg. ‘New York City Soho apartment video’

6. Use logical urls. Make sure your url structure uses your main keywords in a user friendly fashion eg. abcrealestate.com/videos/soho-apartment-video rather than abcrealestate.com/videos/vid1234

7. Organise your videos. If you are hosting and publishing more than one video on your site, keep them all in one directory so search engines can more easily find and rank them.

8. Choose a compelling thumbnail image for the video. The thumbnail you provide for the video is really important in terms of attracting viewers. Experiment with different images to see what generates the most interest and views.

9. Keyword research. Further to tip 5, above, make sure you do the keyword research you would do for other online content, to best target your intended audience. There are a number of keyword research tools available that help you identify the words most often used when searching for content like yours online.

10. Develop inbound links. As with any webpage, you should look to develop as many inbound links to your videos with the keywords you are targeting in the anchor text of those links.

Happy shooting!

[image: flickr/pedrosimoes7]