Animated videos are a great way to inform and engage with your audience. They can be used to tell exciting stories, explain complex concepts, showcase your brand, or even advertise your products and services.
Typically, you may create powerful and visually appealing animation videos, share them on social media, and wait for your audience to engage. But, have you ever thought of optimizing your videos for search engines like Google or Bing as part of your SEO strategy?
Here’s the benefit of search engine optimization (SEO) for your videos— people whose search queries are for specific information can easily find the videos, learn about your brand, and visit your website. Eventually, they may become paying customers.
Optimizing your animated videos for search engines will ensure that your video reaches its intended audience and attracts the attention it deserves. So, in this article, we’ll explore seven best practices in SEO for animated videos.
Let’s go!
1) Research relevant keywords
Before diving into the optimization process, thorough keyword research is essential. First off, since you’ll need to add descriptions and titles to your video, it’ll be helpful to add relevant keywords to them. Additionally, identifying the relevant keywords allows you to align your video content with what potential customers are searching for. It’s safe to say that keyword research can be done even before you create your video.
However, if you have already created your video, your keyword research still helps you optimize for online visibility.
Thankfully, you can use keyword research tools to discover which keywords will help you optimize your video for the best results. Some keyword tools you can use are Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or Ubersuggest. Usually, these tools will show you details like the keyword search volume, competition, keyword difficulty, and related keywords.
For example, if you want to create an animated video about running successful SEO strategy campaigns, you can simply input the keyword “SEO campaigns” on Ahrefs keyword checker and you’ll have results like this:
Google Keyword Planner also shows you how competitive the keywords are — low, high, or medium. It’s advisable to go for keywords with low competition if you’re just starting with your SEO. This way, it’s easier for you to rank for a particular keyword. Just look at the Competition column and you’ll see how competitive a specific keyword is:
Alternatively, a simple Google search like the example below will also give you insight into what people are searching for about a particular topic. Then, you can go ahead to optimize your videos with the suggested search terms.
Remember, the purpose of your keyword research is to help you find the best selections for your video. You can conveniently mix up long-tail and short-tail keywords in your video description, tags, or meta tags.
Short-tail keywords are more competitive, but they have a higher search volume, for example, “website optimization”. Long-tail keywords are less competitive but have a lower search volume, for example “how to improve website optimization”. So, working with both keyword types will help you optimize your video more effectively.
2) Use descriptive titles and descriptions
Crafting descriptive titles and descriptions is another way to ensure good SEO for animated videos. A descriptive video title is one that effectively communicates the content and purpose of your video in a concise but engaging manner.
When users discover your video on search engines or social platforms like YouTube, the title is often the first thing they see. As such, it should help searchers understand what your video is about. A descriptive title also helps search engines understand the context of your video so they can easily retrieve it when there is a related query.
For example, a video about SEO campaign management can be titled “The Basics of Campaign Management” or “5 Simple Steps to Effective SEO Campaign Management ”. Notice how both titles provide a clear context. With this, users know if your video will give them the information they seek. Take a look at the descriptive title by Simplilearn below:
Next, you want to focus on the video description. Elaborate on the video topic, highlighting key points and benefits that tell the viewers what to expect. You want to keep your description informative and compelling.
Additionally, it's recommended to keep your video description at a reasonable length. While YouTube allows up to a 1,000-word character limit, a general rule of thumb is to aim for 200 to 400 words, considering your content and audience type. Finally, don’t forget to include your target keywords and end with a clear call to action.
3) Use closed captions and transcripts
While the description and video title can give search bots a hint of what your content is about, the animated content itself cannot be read. Now, search engines can index text in close captions and transcripts. That makes for a good SEO for animated video opportunity.
A closed caption (CC) is a text-based representation of your video’s audio content (dialogue, sound effects, and other relevant audio information). As seen below, closed captions are synched with the video and display texts in real-time as the audio plays.
Transcripts, on the other hand, are written documents that contain the text of your video. They are not synched with the video so they can be downloaded by the viewer. If your transcript is short, you can even copy-paste it on your website with your accompanying video and a relevant blog post. Just optimize your blog post, too, as part of your SEO campaign management.
When Digital Discovery Networks (DDN) ran an experiment, they found out that videos with captions had an increase of 7.32% in views. In the same study, DDN also discovered that their closed captions helped them rank better on search engines.
To optimize your close captions, ensure that they are accurate. Use the proper punctuation and grammar, too. Your transcripts should be formatted in a readable manner.
Include timestamps and paragraphs where applicable. You also need to test your captions and transcripts before publishing your video so that you can spot errors or delays. Adding closed captions and transcripts to video animations will not only boost your SEO but also improve the overall user experience.
4) Optimize video file names
The file name of your animated video can also impact its discoverability. So, instead of a random or generic file name like “video.mp4” or a numbered file name like “video_2322567.mp4”, use a readable file name that also includes the relevant keyword.
When naming your video file, here are a few things to note in SEO for animated videos:
- Keep it short - this will ensure that the file name is visible in search results if it comes up.
- Use hyphens instead of spaces - Hyphens are used to separate words in a file name so it’s easy for search bots to read. So instead of using “SEO best practice”, opt for “SEO-best-practice”.
- Avoid special characters - special characters like ampersands (&), underscores (_), exclamation marks (!), and so on, are considered illegal filename characters and should be avoided.
A well-optimized file name can help search engines understand the content and context of your video, making it more likely to be ranked higher and discovered by your target audience.
5) Create a video sitemap
A video sitemap is an XML file that tells search engines about your video content. It contains information about the videos such as their title, description, length, video location, and even includes a thumbnail URL.
Information like this helps the search engines to index your animated videos, making them more visible in search results and accessible to active users. Here’s what a sitemap looks like:
To create a sitemap, you can use an XML sitemap generator like ScreamingFrog SEO Spider, Yoast SEO, or your preferred tool. If you’re new to this, it’s best to research and find one that’s easy to use.
Once you have created your sitemap, don’t forget to submit it to Google Search Console. This helps to ensure that your video is properly indexed on Google. You may also discover errors you may need to fix. These could be issues like invalid URLs, broken links, or incorrect file formats.
6) Share your video on social media
Social sharing is a vital aspect of e-commerce, marketing, and SaaS content production. While social media does not directly impact SEO, sharing your video on social networks can increase its reach and engagement, generating more link clicks and traffic to your content. This engagement is what signals to engines that people find your content useful and relevant. In turn, this can potentially increase your search ranking.
Also, sharing content on social media can make it more likely to be discovered by other site owners, influencers, or thought leaders. In turn, they may link to your content. This way, you can initiate link-building to get more backlinks which are important factors in search rankings.
So, share your animated video on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., where your target audience is most active. Don’t hesitate to include keywords in your social media captions, use relevant hashtags, and encourage your audience to leave comments and share your video.
7) Embed your video on your website
Integrating your animated video into your website is another strategic way to implement SEO for animated videos. So, if you’ve solely been relying on YouTube and other social media channels, then it’s time for you to start a blog and share your animated videos within your blog posts.
Embedding your video in relevant web pages — particularly pages that have been optimized for similar keywords — will also increase the potential ranking of your video. When embedding, ensure that the video is placed in a prominent position (either at the top or in between), and is surrounded by related text and context.
Your webpage should be well-structured. It should include keywords in the page titles, headings, and body text so that the purpose of the webpage is clear to search bots.
Finally, you also want to ensure that the web page containing your video is mobile-friendly so that users can easily access your content. This will also reduce the likelihood of page abandonment.
Start optimizing your videos
It’s one thing to create an engaging video and another thing to ensure that it’s discoverable so it can bring the desired results. That’s why optimizing your animated video is also important.
You learned how to do that in this article.
Research relevant keywords, use descriptive titles and descriptions, use closed captions and transcripts in your animated video. Also, optimize your video file names. Don’t hesitate to share your video on social media platforms and embed the video on your website.
By following these tips, you’ll get your video seen on search engines for better engagement. Good luck!
Author bio: Matt Diggity is a search engine optimization expert and the founder and CEO of Diggity Marketing, The Search Initiative, Authority Builders, and LeadSpring LLC. He is also the host of the Chiang Mai SEO Conference.
