wDoc: Video SEO

Video SEO

Video SEO is the practice of providing the metadata (or "information") for your content to search engines to improve the richness of search results (i.e. "rich snippets") and ultimately drive more web visitors.

Wistia provides both recommended approaches to Video SEO - using what's called a "video sitemap", and also utilizing specific markup in the on-page embed code. As a part of your marketing arsenal, following the proper metadata and markup conventions improves your video asset's presence on search engines.

What is Video SEO?

Confused on what Video SEO is? Not to worry, we'll get you started right. Watchthis introduction from Ezra, Director of the Wistia Marketing team.

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Some key take-aways:

Video data can show up in search results in the form of rich snippets.

Research shows Google prefers videos to other search results.

Using the recommended markup makes it easier for Google to discover and indexyour content.

The two recommended ways to help web crawlers find and index your content areon-page markup (which comes in embed codes) and video sitemaps. Wistiaprovides functionality for both approaches, which we cover below.

Using the Video SEO Embed Type

The Video SEO embed code type has been optimized for Video SEO, including bestpractices like Open Graph tags and schema.org markup.

Note

Even if you aren't able to set up a video sitemap, you can still get SEO benefits from using the Video SEO embed code type.

The Video SEO embed code includes the following data for the video, which youwill want to set before generating an embed code:

Video Thumbnail (the image that shows before it is played, which can becustomized)

Video Title (which can be editedon the media page)

Video Description (which can also be editedon the media page)

While you can always edit this information later, you will need to generate anew embed code and re-paste it into your website to take advantage of anychanges.

Once this information is set correctly, you can generate a Video SEO embed codeby opening the video you'd like to embed, and select Embed & Share from theVideo Actions menu.

In the Embed & Share window, select SEO from the Embed Type list. Copythe generated embed code and add it to your site.

For even more information on embedding, review theembedding a video guide.

Creating a Video Sitemap

Video Sitemaps are a metadata document that must follow a pretty rigid syntax(here's an example). Theycan be complex to make and a mess to keep up-to-date. Wistia can create, host,and submit your video sitemap for you, and also update it for new content.

To create a video sitemap, we have to go through a few set up steps. Thesesteps are a one-time thing, and you won't have to do it for each video or foreach update.

Here are the two steps we need to complete:

Add Sitemap line provided to your site's robots.txt file, then verify it.

Create a video sitemap entry for each video you want embedded and indexed.

The first thing we need to do is authorize Wistia to host your video sitemapand reference pages on your site. This is done through the robots.txt file onyour web server.

Robots.txt File Setup

When search engines crawl your web content they refer to a file calledrobots.txt in the root of your website. This file tells search engines whatto index on your site and also where your video sitemap is located.

The robots.txt file also informs search engines about sitemaps that exist foryour website. To see your robots.txt file, open your browser and head toyourdomainname.com/robots.txt (substituting your domain name in).

See the Wistia robots.txt file here:http://wistia.com/robots.txt

A common SEO problem is accidentally blocking search engines from crawling yourwebsite with robots.txt. Make sure you allow search engines to crawl and findyour content.

Make sure there is a line that looks like: User-Agent: *

If you see a Disallow: line in your robots.txt file, make sureit doesn't point to pages where your videos are embedded.

Creating a robots.txt file

Creating a robots.txt file is different depending on the CMS or websitemanagement system you are using. In some cases, a robots.txt file might havebeen created for you, and in some CMS platforms, it is not editable.

If you are self-hosting your site, you can create a robots.txt file, and add itto your site's root directory. To create a new robots.txt file, open a texteditor (like TextEdit, Vim, or Word), and add the line:

User-Agent: *

Add the Video Sitemap link as outlined below, then save the file asrobots.txt.

Note

If you cannot create or edit the robots.txt file for your website, you can still get SEO benefits using the .

Adding the Video Sitemap URL

You will be adding one line to your robots.txt file that notifies Google yourvideo video sitemap is hosted by Wistia. To find the line you'll be adding foryour account, open up the Video SEO area of your account, which can be foundunder the Account menu.

The three steps to getting your sitemap set up are also outlined on the VideoSEO page in your account.

Once you have added the line to your robots.txt and typed the URL, click theVERIFY YOUR ROBOTS.TXT button.This will retrieve your specified robots.txt and verify that the information isviewable by Google.

Note

Robots.txt do need to follow a certain format! Make sure yours is correct byreviewing the guidelines.

Next, we'll embed the video using the SEO embed code type.

Making a video sitemap entry

Once you have verified the entry in your robots.txt file, you will be able toadd entries to your video sitemap. Once a video sitemap entry is made, it willbe automatically picked up by Google and your content will be indexedaccording to Google's indexing queue.

Making a new video sitemap entry is the fun part of the process! You get totalk all about your content and why it is valuable.

After you have embedded a video on your website, go to your video's media page(i.e. the page in Wistia where you can view the video, which has a URL like<youraccount>.wistia.com/medias/12345). Select Add to SEO Sitemap from theVideo Actions menu.

Note

Before adding a Video Sitemap entry, make sure you have embedded your video using the SEO embed code type.

This will then bring up a dialog box where you can enter the relevantinformation about your video (like tags, description).

Enter your video's information, and clickAdd to video sitemap. Your sitemap will thenbe automatically updated and the new changes that should be indexed.

Making Better Sitemap Entries

Title

The title should be relevant for the video. Don't try and make it overly wordyor contain too many tags, just focus on appropriately naming the video for aviewer's experience.

Description

Be as descriptive as possible but make sure you are not going overboardwith keywords you want your video to rank for. Make the description usefulfor viewers, not for bots.

Tags

We’ve found that having 3 to 4 word descriptive tags works best for ourvideos. Don’t get too wordy with your tags and keep it simple.

Managing your video sitemap entries

Video sitemap entries can be managed from the video SEO dashboard within yourWistia account. Select Video SEO from under the Account menu.

This will take you to the video SEO dashboard where you can:

See all videos currently in your sitemap

Edit the sitemap entries by clicking the "Edit" button on any entry

Remove any entries that may no longer be valid using the "Remove" button

Optimizing After Indexing

In the end, the goal is to drive more traffic back to your website. Optimizingyour video content for search engines means the pages show in results witha video (which gets clicked more often) and in video-specific search results aswell. When a searcher clicks the video still in results, they will be taken toyour website, which is a major advantage over YouTube SEO.

We recommend keeping a close eye on your traffic during the SEO indexingprocess - see if you notice an uptick after your video content is indexed. Fromthat baseline data, you can experiment with changes to improve incomingtraffic.

First, make sure you have related content on your page so that search engineshave context surrounding the video. If you notice an increase in traffic fromspecific searches, add more content for those visitors.

Second, the thing that drives folks to click on the video is the thumbnail!Choose a thumbnail that looks attractive for the topic at hand. If you updatethe thumbnail of your video, you will need to re-embed it, because the SEOembed code contains a direct URL to that image. Google will automaticallyupdate their index every few weeks.

Adding Additional Domains

Adding more than one domain to your Video SEO in Wistia is easy to do. Afteradding your first domain, a button will appear on the right bar in your VideoSEO account section for adding additional domains (see the image at right).

You will be prompted to walk through the same steps as adding your initial domain.

Host Your Own Video Sitemap

The functionality we have designed is meant to reduce headaches around usingVideo SEO. There are some situations, however, when you might want use Wistiato build your Video Sitemap file, but self-host it somewhere else. This sectionwill cover the steps to hosting and submitting a Video Sitemap file yourself.

Build your Video sitemap

In order for these steps to be useful, you must first go through thenormalVideo SEO setup steps. You'll need to confirm yourRobots.txt file. Once that is complete, you can usethe “Add to SEO Sitemap” function under the Media Actions menu to create newentries for your videos.

Export your Video sitemap

The next step is to export the Video sitemap Wistia built based on your metadataentries. To save the contents of your Video Sitemap file, navigate to the SitemapURL (i.e. http://app.wistia.com/sitemaps/26547.xml), and then save that webpage.

To track down the URL of the Sitemap, look under the help bubble (question markicon) on the Video SEO tool page. See the screenshot below.

Upload Video sitemap to your own host

Upload to your web host, the same way you might for a new web page or web pageimage. Doesn’t need to go anywhere in particular, just needs to be accessibleby Google.

Submit Sitemap URL to Google Webmaster Tools

Followthis guideto make sure you submit your new Video Sitemap correctly.

When you add a new video to your sitemap, you will need to re-export, replacethe version you have on your end, and re-submit to Google. Annoying, but if ourhosting paradigm doesn't work for some reason, this might be a good solution!

Video SEO FAQ

Video SEO is tough, but valuable. Customers have asked us lots of questionsabout using our Video SEO tool for their video. We'll attempt to compile themhere.

Do I still need to create an sitemap, or submit something to Google Webmaster Tools?

Wistia tools take care of that process automatically for you. We create asitemap, add the videos you designate, and submit it through Google WebmasterTools, all automatically.

I thought only YouTube got indexed on Google search results? Should I have my video on both platforms?

Google has continued to support an open market, indexing videos that followtheir SEO guidelines, regardless of where they are hosted.

That being said, you don't really want to have your video on YouTube and useWistia Video SEO. Because YouTube videos are indexed by default, your contentwill compete with itself in the rankings if you use both.

If the most important metric for your video is views, YouTube is a greatplace for them. If your goal is to encourage a conversion event, like asign-up, subscription, or a share, then you want to drive viewers to your siteto watch your video. That is where Video SEO can be a valuable tool.

I can't update my robots.txt file. What should I do?

We don't create a sitemap for your account unless we can verify the robots.txtfile is accurate. That being said, the SEO embed code type can still provideplenty of value. Because it is optimized to use Open Graph tags and Schema.orgmarkup, we've seen videos get indexed without the need for a sitemap. While thesitemap is still considered a best practice, it is no longer a must-have forVideo SEO.

Can I use popover (lightbox) or playlist embeds?

At this time, we don't provide search engine optimized embed codes for thepopover (lightbox) or playlist player types. We made that decision because inour tests it seemed required for the Google bots to have direct access to thevideo on the page, and immediately accessible to the visitor, in order to reapthe benefits of video on page rankings.

Is hosting my video sitemap with Wistia ok? Will Google accept it?

Yes. Google has made cross-submission support via a robots.txt file anaccepted and efficient part of the SEO workflow.Seethis article from the Google Webmaster Central Blogfor more.

It's been several days, when can I expect to see my video ranked in SERPs?

It can take up to 2 weeks for Google to index new content.

Because Google can be a bit of a black box, it's notpossible to determine exactly when new content will be indexed for videoresults. In our experience, a waiting period of 10 - 15 days is not uncommon.

If you have been waiting for a considerable amount of time, double-check thelist of possibly bad practices below, to make sure your content doesn't fallinto one of the areas of content that Google doesn't index reliably.

What can prevent videos from being added to Google search results?

There are a few practices that we have seen prevent indexing.

Redirects are a tricky practice, and more often than not, they seem tocause failures. Google might not follow the redirect when crawling, or theredirects might be set up incorrectly.

Disallowing content in the robots.txt file would result in everythingappearing "successful", but your content never appears in search results.Double-check that any "disallow" blocks in your robots.txt file do not pointto content you want indexed.

Dynamically loading content using javascript, or light-boxes (like Wistiapopovers), etc. does not currently work. Google wants your content to be onthe page when a visitor loads it up (no additional clicks or actions required).

Putting video farther down the page can have a negative and even negatingeffect on the content. Where possible, make sure your videos are embedded ata good viewing size (at least 600px wide) and near the top of the page.

Can I use Wistia embeds to build links for SEO?

The Social Bar includes an embed button, which allows viewers to embed yourvideo in other places. Wistia includes acustomize option for adding linksthat point back to the original site into the embed code your viewers can access.

So if one of your viewers re-embeds the video, new viewers can track down theoriginal source of the content, which Google and search engines also value.Phil Nottingham fromDistilled, who is a real SEOexpert (we just play one on video),posted at length about using this for yourcontent.Building links back to your original content can be hugely powerful forbuilding your audience.

For more on building SEO links using for your content,see the Customization docs.