When implementing a video component in your company’s marketing strategy, it is imperative to ensure your videos are drawing optimal traffic to your website.  Simply adding tags and keywords (which are still important) will not optimize your video to their full potential.

In most cases, it is easier to embed code into your site after your video is uploaded to YouTube.  This, however, only draws traffic to YouTube and not your website itself.  Though your video may still be recognized in the search engines, it will direct the viewer to YouTube.com to view the video, and not your website.  In essence, you’ve spent all of that time optimizing YouTube‘s site.  If you use a CMS and are able to access your website through a login, you can follow these tips to better optimize videos on your website:

1) Write static content. Before embedding your video, make sure the web page has static content describing the video.  Those accessing your site with slower Internet connections or from a mobile device may have to wait until the video uploads; adding content describing the video gives them more incentive to stay on the page while the video loads.

2) Include the word “video” in your description. When logged into your CMS, include the word “video” both in static content on your website and in meta data, as users often use the word “video” when searching.

3) Create a video sitemap. Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! use sitemaps to index your website’s content.  Just as you create a sitemap for your entire site, a sitemap needs to be created for the video itself.

4) Place all of the videos in the same folder on your computer. You can organize your site’s documents within your computer in a folder that you label “Video.”  Rather than just piling more files onto your website and spontaneously adding more code, organize the contents into their own folders, just as you would on your desktop.  Doing so will allow search engines to locate your site’s videos easier.

5) Increase web traffic social media on your website. Enabling “share” buttons allows site visitors to share your content on the web through a variety of social networks drawing more traffic to your website.

Learn more on ensuring your site’s videos are properly optimized for search engines.