Video SEO is becoming one of the hottest topics for Web 2.0 related tactics.  Here are the basics of what you need to do if you offer video on your website.

  1. Create metadata for your developers.
    This tells them how big your video is, the keyword information and the format you will be using.  This is the most important part of video search engine optimization.  Make sure you encode to allow for all formats.
  2. Add meta information
    This metadata information should be added during video encoding or inital video creation.  This will list the video’s genre, copyright information, description, keywords and title.
  3. Pick a descriptive name
    Search engines can index the name of the video that is uploaded and therefore, you should name the video based on the keywords that visitors might use to find what you have to offer.
  4. Avoid flash video players
    1. Search engines have a hard time crawling through flash.
  5. Submit your video
    1. Singing Fish: Allows publishers to submit their site URL and video directly. Ideally, you want to keep all site media elements in a single directory in the root of your site. (www.site.com/videos). Like most engines, Singing Fish also utilizes an RSS driven inclusion program.
    2. Google Video: Users can upload videos via either a site submission form or through a downloadable desktop tool. Publishers can add or update Meta and content information for each video, or use the video dashboard to update all files from one screen. The Google dashboard also includes a tab for reporting to see what people are interested in and what video they’re not watching. And of course, since you’ve uploaded your video to Google, they take the bandwidth hit, not you.
    3. YouTube: Converts video to a set format so it’s very important to start with a good quality video. YouTube allows users to include a series of basic meta information, including the title, description, tags, language and video category. The downside of YouTube: it’s flooded with content (dogs riding skateboards = awesomeness), so optimization is imperative.
  6. Create a video site map
    Make sure to cross link videos using keywords in its anchor text not only for the site map but for all links pointing to the video.
  7. Have relevant copy
    As with all SEO, it is a good idea to surround your video with relevant copy.

Which engines are you optimizing video for?

 Good related resources: