Did you know that YouTube is now the 2nd largest search engine in the world? It’s now even more important to understand SEO for YouTube Videos.  You may also know that Google owns YouTube, so they work together to match Google searches with relevant videos.  The goal with today’s post is to give you a better understanding of how to optimize your videos so that you get more exposure in YouTube searches as well as Google rankings from your YouTube videos.

Consider the Keywords

It is important to consider specific keywords that your customers use to find you.  This is the case for any type of search engine optimization, and it applies to video SEO as well – remember, YouTube is a competitive search engine just like Google.  How would your customers ideally find you? You’ll of course start with whatever your product or service is, but what next? Location is pretty popular for narrowing it down; if there are specific cities that you serve, you’ll definitely want to rank for your location. Think about your niche industry and what specific keywords your customers type when looking for whatever it is that you do. Accurate and appropriate keywords will play a huge role in your video popping up in searches.

Take a look at this video from Dr. Freedman, a great example. She is a psychologist in Calabasas and she did a series of videos about different conditions and treatments. Here she includes a service she offers, the location, and her company name in the title of the video.

Titles and Descriptions

Once you have your keywords ready, you can follow a fairly similar format for all of your titles and descriptions.  Let’s take a look at an example. Say you sell grilled cheese sandwiches in Los Angeles. You figure your ideal customer would find you by searching Grilled Cheese Sandwich Los Angeles.

Title – Grilled Cheese Sandwich Los Angeles – We offer the best Grilled Cheese Sandwiches in Los Angeles (You want to start and end with the keywords you are targeting for best results.)

Description – Heywood is proud to offer the best Grilled Cheese Sandwich in Los Angeles! If you’re hungry, be sure to visit our restaurant and enjoy all of our cheesy, delicious sandwiches. Classic cheddar, creamy brie, we have them all! Open daily, 11am – 9pm.
–Here, you will definitely want to use several “related” terms that are highly relevant to your keyword (like hungry, delicious, cheddar, brie).  Make sure to write the content in a compelling manner that drives the user to take action.  This description is what customers will see before they view your video – so write it for the user and not for the search engine.

Tags –  Don’t be spammy here. Stick to 5-10 tags for each video and don’t go above that. Only include tags that are relevant to the video. DO NOT SPAM YOUR VIDEOS. You do not want to be penalized or even blacklisted! Basically just include your location, your product, and your key “related” terms that you use in the video and in the description.

Happy YouTubing!

I am constantly amazed at the number of websites that I see (and that I am asked to review) that simply don’t work! They might be built 100% in Flash, have a terrible design, and/or don’t have a Call to Action. So frustrating!

Listed here are five things that your website needs to have to be successful!

1. Clean, Modern and Professional Design

Long gone are the days of trying to fit everything possible on a single page. The website viewing audience is turned off by busy, cluttered websites that try to convey too many messages on a single page.

The goal today is to create a clean and professional website that is visually appealing AND provides a powerful message about the company and how it can helps the visitor.

2. Easy to Use Website Navigation

Visitors should never have to spend time looking for how to navigate your site. It should be intuitive.

Your navigation should either be horizontal across the top or vertical on the left hand side. Any other menu locations are confusing to the visitor and they may click off your site.

3. A Blog

Google has long said that to maximize your online presence, you need to make your website the RESOURCE for your industry. There is no better way to establish your brand, become known as a thought leader and create discussions, than with a blog.

Many of my clients update their blog 1-4 times a month and that provides a big boost to their web presence.

4. Reviews

More and more I am recommending my clients go out and get online reviews to establish their credibility. A few years ago, we wanted the reviews to be on our own sites, but as the web has progressed, potential clients want to see reviews on third party sites.

For many businesses, Yelp can be a HUGE source of additional business… at least it has for my business. If fact, you might be reading this and the site that brought you here was Yelp!

Be proactive and after you have happily served your customers, encourage them to write reviews. I guarantee that the time spent will be well worth it.

5. Call to Action

Every site MUST have a Call to Action!

Do you want your visitors to call you? If so, then the phone number must be prominent on every page.

Do you want your visitors to visit your portfolio? If so, then check out my home page and see how I did it.

Do you want your clients to read something about you so you can establish credibility? If so, then we must put that information where they can’t miss it.

As you can imagine, it can take some brainstorming and planning to ensure that you have a site that is EFFECTIVE. We, at Website Muscle, work extremely hard to figure out exactly what needs to be on your website and then design it to help you achieve your goals.

Those are some of the top 5 Must Haves for Every Small Business Website. Is your company incorporating all of them?