Key Phrases for Video SEO

SEO for Video | Picking key phrases

What specific key phrases should you use in the video title, description and in other text elements of the video? There is an important distinction between a topic and a key phrase. A topic is your subject. For example, how to run a faster 5K? A key phrase is a specific phrase that you think folks will use to find videos on this topic. For example, “training for a 5k”.

The topic is very general. The key phrase requires you to look inside your audience's heads. You will need to anticipate how they're going to search for the answer to their question. To understand that you need to understand the words they commonly use, it's tricky, but there's some great keyword tools out there that can help. You can use the keyword data that various video hosting services offer.

You can supplement your YouTube query research with other tools as well. Like Google Suggest, YouTube suggestions will let you see the most popular searches relating to a particular phrase. So, you can start typing a phrase into the search box on any page of YouTube and see what appears in the little drop down. These are great suggestions for search phrases. There are lots of non-video tools as well.

Some commercial tools like WordTracker and Keyword Discovery can provide you with additional data to help you find the right key phrases for your video. I also like to use Google suggest as a broader check for questions and I like to use the Google Adwords keywords tool but again you have to keep in mind this is designed for advertisers. It's not designed for people looking for organic or natural search data.

Try Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends/)to make sure you aren't catching a phrase as its popularity is trailing off.  You don't want to put a lot of effort into a topic or phrase and then find out that people are no longer interested.

Choose one or two key phrase. You don't have much room to optimize the title and description in your video. Use your audience's language. If you sell training programs for runners, don't talk about jogging, that's not the phrase runners will use to find you. They don't think of running as jogging, they think running as running.

Even if you think your audience is using the wrong key phrase, you still need to optimize for the phrase that they're going to use. You can always steer them in the right direction later on but you have to get them to find you first.

Steve Steinberger

www.klicktwice.com

561-281-8330