Creating videos as another way to communicate with patients online can be an excellent component of your overall online marketing strategy.
But did you know that SEO can also apply to videos?
Here’s some guidance on helping you get your videos ranking as well.
Optimize Your Physician Videos for SEO
Just like with the content on your website, you want to optimize your videos to appear in search results.
Keyword Research is an important step that shouldn’t be overlooked when optimizing your videos. You need to understand the keywords that patients are using to find you and what your video is about.
There are two strategies to be aware of, and both are important must-dos if you’re going to use video for your marketing:
- Optimizing physician videos for YouTube search
- Optimizing physician videos for Google search
Optimizing Physician Videos for YouTube
YouTube is the largest video platform in the world and should be a part of your physician marketing strategy.
It’s important to note that YouTube search does not work in quite the same way as Google search. In fact, it’s difficult even for professionals because Google really doesn’t provide a lot of insight as to why some videos do well and others don’t.
But there are four key things you can do to improve your chances of success inside of YouTube search.
1). Create great video titles
One thing that is similar to website SEO is that you’ll want to use your keyword or phrase somewhere in the title of the video. You will want your title to be compelling for clicks and at the same time inform YouTube and searching patients what the video is all about.
2). Create great video metadata
Next, you will want to optimize the metadata specifically for people who are already searching on YouTube. This is the content that goes in the Description field.
You should write a short description of your video, the topics or questions covered, and include a link back to the appropriate page on your website. You will want to include your target keyword(s) and phrases here as well.
3). Add captions
Adding captions to your videos is great for the users as many folks watch/read videos while on their phones. Additionally, this gives YouTube a way to better index the actual content of the video.
Rev.com is the best service I’ve found for creating video captions. They’re fast, pretty accurate, and cost-effective.
4). Create great thumbnail images
The thumbnail image for the video is something that is easy to overlook but is definitely mission-critical.
When your video comes up in a YouTube search, people are much more likely to click to watch it if the thumbnail image is appealing.
Canva is an excellent tool for creating YouTube thumbnails, and they have many templates you can customize available for free. You can also hire a graphic designer to make these for you as well.
Optimizing Physician Videos for Google Search
If you want traffic to your videos from Google search, many of the same strategies used for written content apply here as well.
Let’s assume you have already optimized your video for YouTube, as mentioned above. Now it’s time to bring that video into your website with a dedicated page or post.
Have the video be the first thing users see on the page
You want to help Google do its job, so signal to Google that this video is important and that you want to rank for it by listing it first on the page.
If the video is important, don’t make patients scroll down on the page to find it.
Keep on topic
The topic of your video should be the topic for the page. This helps create a better user experience and, again, signals to Google what they should rank your video and page for.
Limit one video per page
You also don’t want to send mixed signals to Google about which video should rank by having multiple on a page.
Add a transcript of your video
Finally, you’ll want to add a transcript of your video as text on the same page.
This is perhaps the most important yet overlooked strategy for video SEO. As advanced as Google’s search algorithms are, they still need text to know and understand its content.
By having a transcript of your video on the page, you’re making everything instantly available to Google. Plus, some people prefer to read and not watch, so you’re creating a positive user experience for everyone.
Physician videos can be an incredibly powerful marketing tool in attracting new patients. By optimizing the videos to rank in both YouTube and Google search, you’re setting yourself up for success.