You’ve put a lot of time, energy, and care into making sure the videos you shoot for your website are just right. The lighting, sound, and video quality are top level. The final edit looks great, and your script gets right to the heart of what you want your perfect clients to know. Everything is formatted, approved, and ready to rock.
Now what?
It’s time to put those videos to work for your business! The best way to do that is to optimize your videos for the Web and start promoting them in all the right places.
It may seem like a daunting task, but optimization and promotion are a crucial part of your video success. Ultimately, though, it’s not as hard as it might sound—and we’ve laid out all the steps you need to get started below.
Optimize Your Videos for Online Viewers
Before you start promoting your videos, optimize them for success. Video optimization is a mix of common-sense moves and a little technical know-how—made easy with DSS:
- Transcription. Do you have the original script you used to make your video, or do you have a few minutes to transcribe it? Adding a transcription to your video can give it a boost in search and cater to visitors who prefer reading over watching.
- Video schema. Schema markups help search engines understand your videos and display richer video results to searchers. While it’s the most “technical” part of video optimization, it’s a key part of getting the most out of the videos you make. Learn more about video schema—or give us a call at 888.886.0939 if you need a hand.
- Title. Unlike your written content, video content isn’t naturally full of keywords that search engines understand. That means that every word associated with your video is vital, especially your title. The title should accurately describe your video and naturally incorporate appropriate keywords. Keep the title short—generally between 55 and 70 characters—and simple. You should also try to avoid legal jargon unless you’re trying to attract other lawyers. The idea is to use the same kinds of words and phrases that your perfect clients are likely to type into search.
- Tags. Tagging your video is critical to its success. Your tags should be relevant to your video and reflect what people would type into a search bar to find it. Need ideas for better video tags? Make tags from your most relevant keywords and phrases, or take a look at how some of the most popular related videos from your competitors have been tagged.
- Description. The description you write for your video should match the theme of the video and harmonize with the title. It should be interesting, and it should naturally contain those ever-important relevant keywords. Keep in mind that the description is really meant for your potential viewers—it should entice them to watch and offer a sneak peek at what they’ll learn by the end.
- Links and annotations. Many video-sharing sites allow you to add relevant links, so take advantage of that to drive video traffic back to relevant content on your website. You should also check out your options for annotation and other features on sites like YouTube. These features can really bring your video and brand messages to life!
Keep in mind that even a well-optimized video won’t perform well if the content of the video doesn’t hit the mark. Your videos should entertain, inform, and lend themselves to sharing. Each of your videos should be clearly connected to your brand and in harmony with your overall marketing strategy. In other words, if the optimization and promotion techniques we’ve recommended here don’t seem to give your video better traction, it may be time to go back and rethink your script and content.
Position Videos for Success on Your Website
Once everything is optimized, don’t just slap your video on your homepage or video page and call it done! Your videos will work best when you position them on your website with intention.
Add relevant videos to your blogs. Use testimonial videos to make your written testimonials more compelling. Pepper videos throughout your website to create a true multi-media experience for your visitors. The possibilities are almost endless!
If you host your website videos on YouTube, you will also automatically give yourself more potential reach. YouTube is owned by Google, so that’s an obvious bonus. Beyond that, it expands all the ways that people can find and view your videos. They can watch your video on YouTube. They may catch it in video snippets in Google’s regular search results. And, of course, they can conveniently view it on your website and share it with friends.
Maximizing the way you use video on your website and connecting with YouTube are the two most fundamental ways to promote your videos—so don’t skip this step. All the other promotion techniques we talk about below can compound on your video success, but even your best efforts in those areas can falter if you don’t have the basics in place.
Promote Videos on Social Media
Fully promoting your video goes beyond posting it to your own website and YouTube. You also need to put a little work into reaching target audiences that may not know about your website or may not be ready to put their questions into search. Luckily, social media sites do a really good job at reaching people where they are.
Sharing your video on social media sites puts it where potential clients can actually see it, share it, and act on it. You can get more views, receive more comments, gain more traction, and even go viral!
Ready to get social with your videos? Here are some ideas for where to start:
- YouTube. We talked about YouTube as a video hosting and sharing site above, but don’t forget that it’s also a social media site in its own right. Create a YouTube Channel for your business. Organize relevant playlists. Respond to comments, and connect with other relevant people and businesses. Millions of people use YouTube every day, so it makes sense to make the most of it!
- Facebook. When most people think “social media,” they think Facebook. Post videos to Facebook and encourage your fans to watch it, comment on it, and “like” it. Around half of Facebook’s users browse the site every single day, which means that a large number of people who follow are likely to see your video posts.
- Twitter. More and more businesses are using Twitter to stand out, and video has a big appeal for the site’s huge base of mobile users. Get started by Tweeting a link to your video along with a little text about why the video is important to watch or what questions the video will answer.
- LinkedIn. LinkedIn gets overlooked as both a social media site and a video-sharing site. However, videos are an excellent way to connect with more people on LinkedIn and jazz up your profile, especially if you already have a strong written content strategy going.
- Business listings and profiles. Speaking of LinkedIn, there are lots of other profile and directory sites that allow video in some form. Review the profiles that you maintain, and look at how video can fit into your strategy.
- Other social media and video-sharing sites. There’s Instagram. There’s Vimeo. There’s Reddit. There’s LiveLeak. In short, there are tons of sites that might be a good place to share your video and reach new viewers, but they just aren’t right for everyone. Think about the sites you use for video and where your perfect clients tune in, then come up with a strategy that fits the rules and customs of the sites you choose. When done exactly right, you can reach niche audiences that are eager for the information your videos provide. Need guidance for breaking into a new video niche? Talk to our team to come up with some fruitful ideas.
As you get social with your videos, make sure you do everything you can to make it easy for your viewers to get involved and share! For example, add social media share buttons to the videos on your attorney website. Enable and invite comments—whether you post the video on your website, on YouTube, or on Facebook. Connecting and sharing is really what makes the social media world go ‘round.
Promote Video in Emails and Newsletters
Emails that include video tend to generate high click-through rates and better campaign performance—and it makes sense. Video is great at grabbing readers’ attention, especially readers on mobile devices. And video can reach many users in a way that words and still images just can’t.
You can go overboard using video in email, though, so you always want to keep the user experience in mind. Use short videos for your email, and only include one at a time. Provide a teaser or introduction to contextualize the video, and end with a “call to action” that lets people know what to do next. Don’t forget to test your video emails, and tweak your strategy depending on what your email audience prefers. For example, if embedded videos are too overwhelming, you might try linking back to the video on your website instead.
Optimize and Promote Your Videos With the Pros
Videos without proper optimization aren’t as effective as they can be, and we hope you can make the most of your videos with the tips above. If not, though, give us a call at 888.886.0939. We can analyze your current video strategy and talk about where to make your next move.
And, if you’re really interested in beefing up your attorney video marketing, sign up for an on-site video shoot with our team. We’d love to see how we can work together to make your videos wildly successful and bring in more clients for your firm.
Are You Considering Adding Customized, High Quality Videos To Your Legal Or Medical Website? You Should Be!
In today's fast-paced, highly technical online world, if you're not using unique, customized video to attract new leads and clients you're definitely missing a key component to your marketing strategy. Foster Web Marketing is here to help! Please contact us online or call our office directly at 888.886.0939 to schedule your free consultation with our experienced marketing team. We have been helping clients throughout the United States and internationally since 1998 and are confident we can help you not only reach, but exceed your goals.
