Rana says: “I will be talking about video SEO because it's a hot topic in 2024.

What I mean is optimizing videos on the SERP, so videos can appear on the main page, but they can appear also on the videos page, the image page and the discover page. We will be talking about optimizing videos to appear on these pages on Google and other search engines.”

Is YouTube still the big opportunity here or are there other platforms that we can publish videos on in order to appear on the SERP?

“YouTube is still one of the most used video platforms in the world. I have statistics. We are still on 27% of videos viewed on YouTube and 24% on TikTok. So, videos on YouTube are still one of the most viewed resources of video on the internet in 2024. Instagram and Facebook are in third and fourth place.”

Are you saying that YouTube is the opportunity to focus on or other opportunities to publish video elsewhere to still allow you to appear on the SERP?

“When search engines come and try to index something related to a video or something else, they will look to the web page in which we have the video.

So let’s imagine that we have published something on YouTube, which is a great video, then we will go to our website and create a page that will include this video too, as well as the description or things that we will add to this webpage. This webpage will hold the video, and this is the webpage that Google will index and will show.

If it is ‘correctly done’, it will show in the SERPs. So what we are talking about is the video and the associated web page on our website that holds the video. It can come from YouTube or other providers.”

If you have a webpage, and you have an embedded video from YouTube, and you decide you want to have an embedded video from Vimeo instead, do you have just as much an opportunity to rank that video on the SERP?

“You can, if you follow some technical aspects related to the webpage and how it is structured. It's based on providing a clear URL to the video, not where the video is hosted on YouTube or Vimeo.

It's much more about what you will create about that. Is the webpage created correctly? Are you using the parameters that Google provides to us correctly? to see the video either it's on Vimeo or on YouTube, if you need to click a button or do something. This is not an accessible video for Google, so it will not be indexed correctly.

You can also use Structured Data using the schema.org and tell them that you have a video on this page. You can add much more information about the video such as the title, the description, and the duration. You can even add links to the content of the video like the thumbnails on the video, its name itself, the link to YouTube or the link to Vimeo as well. You can add much more elements like is it a live video? What are the key moments in the video? So that all of this information, the search engine will analyze and boost your video at the top of the SERP.”

So you're saying that using the embedded code from YouTube isn't enough and you have to augment that with other data?

“Yeah, you should do work on your webpage to tell Google that this webpage contains a video. I will give you a simple example: if the thumbnail is not accessible or there is an error somewhere, Google will not know that there is a video and it might have your page displayed as a text page. So take care of all the details and all the parameters that Google is providing to us so that you can enhance your web page and your website to tell that it contains a video.”

So what types of videos do Google want to incorporate into the SERP?

“What we do usually as SEOs is begin by doing keyword research. Now, with this keyword research, we aim to enhance our website. But for a video, the keyword research is a little bit different. So you shouldn't use the same tool that you use for the SEO in general for your video.

So some terms are defined by Google that these keywords are related to videos. So if you're adding a video respecting these keywords, you will be pushed over the SERP and you will be one of the results of the video results on the SERP related to that.”

What keyword research tool do we need to use for video?

“The most simple one is YouTube suggests, which is like Google suggest, and you can write, for example, ‘digital marketing 2024’ and we will see the autocomplete that YouTube will do. It's the simplest way to begin, as we do on Google search traditionally, but there are many advanced tools.

I use vidIQ which is a free extension that we can add to Chrome. There are also other tools specialized in giving us correct keyword research related to our videos so that we can give our video a post before even creating the video by choosing the right keywords. For example, there is TubeBuddy, but there are many other tools that are effective in this domain.”

What are people looking for when they're clicking on a video results? Are they looking for more information, or is there potentially a transactional intent?

“Marketers have been talking a lot recently about how videos can create a sale because you can really turn lead to a buyer. There’s a transactional opportunity about the videos and marketers are more and more creating videos to promote business items.

It’s more than likely now that you’ll find a product with a video next, not just photos. Businesses are creating more and more videos to express their word and their brand and to create their brand. It has been shown that thanks to a video people are more likely to buy.

In the keyword research you will find more transactional keywords in the domain of video than you can find maybe on Google. For example, on Google, you might find we are investigating, we are looking for information but more than that we are comparing two beauty products or things like that will lead usually to buying something in the end.”

Are you saying that video is important for further down the customer journey more towards the transactional side of things rather than towards the discovery phase?

“It's not exactly like that. Usually, we come and we take the information. A video can create much more trust, even especially now in our days where, thanks to ChatGPT, everyone is putting a blog about everything.

Creating a video and marketing your brand by offering information, something funny, but appearing all the time to the client when they're about to do something transactional, means they will get to your videos, and end up buying stuff from your brand.”

What type of videos tend to be more successful at appearing in the SERP? Is it shorter videos or is there a certain style of video or a certain type of content within the video that is successful?

“That depends on the keywords and the domain you are based on, and what other videos there are. For example, if you are looking to learn digital marketing you are totally looking at longer, informational videos, whereas if you are looking for something funny and it’s late in the evening you might want shorter ‘clip’ based videos. It depends and it's like your traditional SEO in essence it's about what are other people providing in that sense.

Now I will answer the question differently by saying that will the algorithm push if you aren’t looking for something specific. It will be like the Shorts on YouTube or similar. It's the broadcasting style of videos. So you will find many short videos of 1 to 3 minutes long about people talking about something. That's the type of trend of videos in 2024.”

You mentioned ChatGPT there as well. How is AI impacting video optimization?

“There are two types of use of ChatGPT for videos. The first use, which I don't think will last forever, is when we ask ChatGPT to create everything for us and then we take another tool and it will read the text and create some videos, which is not really attractive.

But the other way is really to use ChatGPT in the correct way in which you can discuss with ChatGPT to create the subjects that are related to your subject to your domain, so that you can brainstorm with ChatGPT to prepare the subject and then the video. It’s important to keep it unique, keep it about yourself and teach your brands and clients to do the same.

Don't take everything that ChatGPT says and apply it directly. Try to add your brand and your identity in the video, so it can be much more attractive to users.”

Does every brand have to be producing videos nowadays, or are we only talking about certain types of businesses?

“Unfortunately, yes. I know, it's a lot of work and that's why I advise you to do the technical details correctly so that you can rank higher. But yes, even very, very small businesses should do something in the video market.”

Original video produced by AI is getting better and better. Is there always going to be a place for that person, that individual, in front of a camera adding their true personality, or is AI going to take over the whole video production process?

“I'm optimistic that humans will win the war with AI. Yes, Sora and other platforms are producing great, very great videos and there will be a period in which we will be ‘Wow, that's great’. But at the end of the day, it's the human who will win because we will come back looking for this authentic thing with other people.

Artificial Intelligence has been based upon all the people who have created things, great things in the past. So if everything stops here and we deliver everything to artificial intelligence it will reach its end. At the end of the day, what will win is that collaboration between the humans and the difference that humans can provide in using these AI to create something that is much more unique, much more interesting.”

So you have shared what SEOs should be doing in 2024, now, let's talk about what SEOs shouldn't be doing. What's something that's seductive in terms of time, but ultimately counterproductive, what’s something that SEOs shouldn't be doing in 2024?

“If we relate to what we have been talking about, let me say you have a client who you are working with to enhance their video production and video pages as we have discussed before, don’t forget to take care of the technical details, please take care of that. If you don't do that, maybe they have created a great video that will not be pushed correctly and take its place and Google will not understand everything. For example, they cannot access the audio and visual URLs of your video. So take care of the technical details when adding the video to the client's website so that they will have great results. Based on that. It's better than telling your customer to produce more videos and then falling into the same trap. So it's important to take care of the technical aspect of video SEO.”

Rana Abu Quba Chamsi, PhD, is a consultant and formatrice in digital marketing at Expando Digital, and you can find her over expando.digital.