Video hosting - SEO
-
Hi,
We host all of our videos on You Tube and use embedded links to display on our site.
When people search keywords related to our videos they are linking back to You Tube through SERPs. Is there a way link SERPs to websites instead of You Tube?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Sean
-
Hi Donald,
As others have mentioned, it's normally very difficult to get a rich snippet result off the back of an embedded YouTube video, which means your best bet will probably be to take the vids down from YouTube and host them yourself or with a third party provider.
I created a guide last week which gives you step by step instructions for getting your own domain ranking for a video - if you follow those pointers then you should have no problem getting the rich snippets in the SERPs.
Any questions/confusions, please do let me know.
Cheers,
Phil
-
Hi Amie,
Thanks for your response. Yeah, we get a lot of comments from hungry viewers on You Tube. Unfortunately, we don't do delivery to the States though!
I actually saw a mention of being able to use video sitemaps to link SERPs on this Whiteboard Friday video http://www.seomoz.org/blog/video-seo-basics-whiteboard-friday-11080#jtc173625 but didn't see anything else on how to do it or if you are still able to do it. Wondered if there is a tag or something that I can add to the iframe to enable this.
Yes we do need to work on the tags and descriptions of our videos, unfortunately it's one of these things that is on my to do list but I never round to doing. Will definitely get working on adding links to the site from the videos!
Thanks again.
Sean -
Not an unusual problem. YouTube is a naturally popular site and Google likes to showcase it in the SERPs when there's something relevant.
As Amie said, you need to link to your site in the video description. You're missing out on potential traffic.
As convenient as YouTube is, maybe consider hosting the videos yourself? Amazon S3/Cloudfront, for instance, is fairly cheap and speedy enough to serve videos to your visitors. It neatly avoids having the YouTube problem but it means a lot more work to get your videos ranked (writing content, transcribing, etc). You might want to check out how to do some video SEO if you go this route.
-
Hey Sean,
First... I'm insanely hungry now from watching your videos! Second, I'm wondering why you don't have a link in your Youtube videos back to your site. Remember that YouTube is a powerful search engine itself so if I were you I would use those videos for double duty. Optimize them and make sure there is a link back to your site so the traffic comes from You Tube in addition to your site.
That might also solve your problem of the YouTube video landing in search. I would spruce up the description so that it appeals both to people coming from your site and from YouTube.
Full Disclosure: I haven't used Youtube in 11 months so they might have changed their protocol...
Unfortunately, I don't think you are going to be able to switch out your video for a site on the SERPs - but I could be wrong. I'll be looking forward to one of our amazing Mozzers to answer this more directly. In the meantime, I hope that what I shared will at least help a little
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How can I make embedded YouTube videos point to my domain in the search results?
We've recently moved to using YouTube for embedded videos on our site. We have a number of videos that are embedded and then a larger number of videos which are part of our YouTube channel. I've been reading recently that it's possible to get Google to list embedded video links pointing to your site rather than to YouTube itself. I am interesting in driving traffic directly from the search results to our pages rather than via YouTube. Could somebody provide a basic step by step guide on how to do this please? Or is this something that is not possible? I've been doing a lot of research online but, sadly, can't work out how to do this.
Image & Video Optimization | | RG_SEO1 -
Can SEO companies be listed on Google Local, Bing Local, and Yahoo Local?
Can anyone confirm if SEO companies can be listed in the local results for Google, Yahoo, and Bing? I'm asking because when you search for most local terms, it will return their local listings. However, that doesn't appear to be the case when searching for SEO or marketing services - or at least none show up when searching from Houston and I'm pretty sure we have quite a few SEO companies here 😉
Image & Video Optimization | | ChaseCameron0 -
Youtube vs Vimeo for better SEO
Hi i am starting to make some videos for my company like a tutorials for our products and i have some questions! What low budget service to choose for video hosting to have the best results for seo? I start with youtube because is google friendly but the ads are very big problem for me! Then i had start to thing about Vimeo but I am worried if my videos gone lost from search results! What you thing about it?
Image & Video Optimization | | petrospan0 -
YOUTUBE BEST PRACTICE for SEO
We have made a seriers of videos, shouled we link them together in the description or in the video itself on youtube for favorable results? What else cn we do to help other that writing a good quality description, use the customize options in youtube and then place the embed for the video on a content rich page about the subject. Ofcourse the keyword is in the first part of the title, and we use keywords as anchor text back to the video page. Also make sure it is in a good video sitemap? Other than that, what do you suggest? p-3VepAtpvk
Image & Video Optimization | | jdcline0 -
What's the best way to host video for SEO purposes?
Hello SEOmoz folks, I'm curious as to whether it will be more beneficial for a website to host a video on the site itself or to host it on YouTube and then embed the code on your site. The options so far, as it seems, are: 1.) Host the video on YouTube or Vimeo or wherever else, then embed the YouTube code into your own website's HTML. 2.) Host the video on your own website by itself. 3.) Host the video on your own website AND YouTube AND Vimeo. I'm wondering which option is best. And if hosting your video on your own website is a good way to go, whether to go that route solely or in addition to hosting on YouTube, what is the best way to go about that? Do I have to embed a player AND the video info into the HTML of my website? What player is best for this? Flash, or something else? And once I get the video on my site one way or the other, how do I write the code to make sure the video thumbnail shows up next to my search results in Google to maximize the SEO potential for the video clip? Sorry for the long question, but I've been searching everywhere for this and I'd love just a direct answer on it. Thanks for your help! Cheers, Dani
Image & Video Optimization | | MountainMedia0 -
Does YouTube read a transcript for SEO
Hi, Just wondering if anyone knows if YouTube uses transcripts uploaded to videos as search signals? ie will the video rank better in the SERPs with a transcript? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | Digirank0 -
Local SEO - Confirming an Address that Does Not Receive Mail
Hi guys, I have a question that might have been asked previously but warrants asking again. What is the best workaround for Google Local verification for a business that is located at a physical address that does not receive mail. I have a friend who lives in an area that does not receive mail. This particular person tried using a local PO box to verify, but as it turns out that is a poor option a) because it is not allowed within the guidelines of Google Local, and b) because the listing was not accepted as a unique address and is listed without an address in Local because of this. Is there anyone with recent experience in terms of getting around this and verifying perfectly legitimate businesses in no-mail areas? I would have thought Google would have provided a workaround for those types of businesses. Any thoughts / experience would be appreciated!
Image & Video Optimization | | toddmumford0
