Video SEO: A Cool Way to Rank Local Business on Search

In this episode, we cover:

Today, we speak to Ted Sellers, who is into results-driven Local SEO Consulting with over 15 years’ experience combining strong marketing and sales experience with hands-on technical knowledge around local SEO, website design and development, e-commerce, and online sales, digital marketing, and CRM.

In this episode, Ted will speak on the topic “Video SEO: A Cool Way to Rank Local Business on Search.”

Stay tuned for the next podcast episode, where our guests, Kristaps and Kaspars, discuss Shopify SEO.

Show Notes Explanation

Video SEO: A Cool Way to Rank Local Businesses on Search

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of SEO on air. Today, we have a special guest Ted Sellers. Let me give you one question for you guys. Imagine that you’re a plumber in a particular area or maybe an owner of a repairing company, and you have your own website. You want to rank for some of the keywords related to the service that you’re providing in the local area. So the moment you are searching for it on Google, there’ll be a lot of listing websites, and it’s quite difficult to outrank such authority websites on the web.

Our guest here, Ted, has a lot of ideas about using video to rank for such heavily competed keywords. Welcome to our show.

Ted: We have done multiple different projects with video for local companies and have gotten a really good experience.

Senthil: Great. Let’s jump in. So guys, to give you a bit more background about Ted, he has been doing local SEO video consultation for over 15 years. He’s an independent local SEO consultant, and he’s serving businesses in the Minneapolis and Saint Paul Minnesota area.

So he’s been doing quite a bit of local SEO consulting for companies in these areas. Feel free to get in touch with him if you guys have any questions about local SEO or how to rank your current sites.

So then are you ready? I have a long list of questions to understand and learn more about using videos for local SEO.

Ted: Okay.

Senthil: Great. Before the podcast, we were discussing this topic, and you specifically mentioned using video as a means to rank faster. Can you tell us a bit more about what this video SEO is and how it can help to rank for local SEO, especially let’s assume that the Plumber in Miami is the keyword?

Ted: First of all, Google loves video. I know that for a fact-based on different things that I’ve done on my end. From a testing standpoint, it all starts with the type of video that you’re using. There are information videos where you may answer a person’s question, and then there’s someone looking for a plumber or roofer near me.

With the video specifically, if you want to use it to rank for local terms, the biggest thing is going to be the title. Making sure you have, for example, roofing companies near me term there in the title, along with whatever city that you’re trying to get founded so that the title is kind of one of the biggest factors.

I’ve found that videos between two minutes to 10 minutes typically do a lot better than a 22-second video. There’s a piece in the back end of YouTube that you can put in the city you’re trying to get founded. So it’s your geotag and the video. So those are some of the key factors along with the description.

Senthil: Right. So what are some types of videos that people can do? Because there are corporate videos and quite different types of videos that people can use, but, in your experience, what do you think is the best type of videos that can rank faster for companies that focus on local SEO?

Ted: I think being able to answer a question that a consumer may be typing, and the second one would be a video for review. You know, if you had a customer that you went out and did some work for, and then you asked them to do a two-minute review, those typically do very well too and bring in a lot of interaction.

Senthil: Okay. So, typically you’re saying to get a video review from your customers, which would help them to rank. Okay. Even on YouTube, it’s hard to be found organically. Is there any paid option, or is there any, you know, a quick tip that people can take to get some eyeballs scrolling and then trying to rank for the organic?

Ted: One thing that I feel like is being underutilized for some reason is, YouTube video ads. There are multiple things that you can do with YouTube video ads. You can utilize it to basically go out to people who may be typing your competitor’s name or click on their website.

So, basically, we are targeting the other factors that you could use it for. Let’s say you got a hell-storm in Minneapolis, you know the zip code or address of the area, you can actually take the ad or part of the YouTube video, and I should be able to advertise in that particular area.

And I can tell you that we’ve gotten some good results with that one for certain roofing companies in the area. So, I mean, there’s different ways you can use it, you can use the video ads to target your competitors, or you can use it to target an area where you want to be founded, and that’s going to affect how quickly your video ranks.

So then you know how well your video works, basically the message in that video getting the point across.

Senthil: And this is all about YouTube, right? The whole conversation that we had now, It’s entirely on YouTube. So are there any other players like Vimeo where you prefer to host?

Ted: The other platform is, I think, you want to make sure you get that video on your website. I’ve found that adding the video to the website requires the right SEO plug because there are ways you can scheme more markup the video. So, I’ve found that by adding it to particular pages on different sites actually help that site rank much faster versus the traditional way of adding content on the page.

So, your website would be the next phase, Twitter; you can add a video to Twitter. You can also add a video to LinkedIn if you have a LinkedIn business page and even Pinterest and Facebook. I think those are the main places that you want to make sure you have the video. With Twitter, you can upload the video, or you can share it from YouTube, that’s totally optional.

Senthil: Okay, great, and these are like LinkedIn native videos and Facebook native videos, right?

Ted: Yeah. So, on Facebook, I would recommend that you upload a video instead of sharing it, particularly if you’re going to do ads on Facebook. Facebook is another platform where you can use your video ads.  I would highly recommend uploading a video and adding the title and tags, etc.

Senthil: Great. So, if someone is uploading an introduction video about plumbing, or maybe about roof repairs, or perhaps even an auto glass repair shop, what are the best practices that people can use from the star or refer to like a checklist?

Ted: Sure. So the first phase would be figuring it out, getting your message. There are two types of messages; there are messages where you educate a consumer, that’s the first message. In the second phase, you have to get your company’s information out there, kind of who you are, what you do, and how you can help the customer.

Remember that once you get that phase figured out, you get into the next phase, which would be giving the page title and the description and all those factors in place. So when you get a video, the first thing you want to do is make sure you name the video with the keyword that you’re trying to target. For example, if I were going to do a video for a roofing company in Minneapolis, I would make sure that the file name is Minneapolis roofing companies or roofing companies in Minneapolis and save it.

Then once you get the file saved, when you upload it, make sure you get the proper title. Again, the title is one of the most important factors, so make sure you get the keyword at the beginning of the title and have some sort of call to action.

And then, you know, the next phase would be the description, which is another critical factor. So, you would make sure you have your keywords in your description. Along with a website URL, I look at a ton of videos, and I am just surprised at the fact that people don’t add their website URL in the description. It’s critical because it helps the video perform well. And it also helps your website. Then the next phase would be, you know, just shared it throughout social media, and those would be some of the most common things. I actually missed mentioning adding the proper text. Text kind of tells you to basically what the video’s about. So making sure you have your main keywords at the beginning of the text. For example, again, Minneapolis roofing companies can go to Google keyword and type in whatever keyword that you’re trying to rank for and get some ideas there.

Senthil: Okay, great. I think the thumbnail image, that’s also quite important, right?

Ted:  Yep. So when someone’s searching, if they type in Minneapolis roofing companies, one of the things that, you know, you got the ad words, you got the three-pack, and then you got the organic section. If you have a good thumb tag, that’s really what’s going to help you get more clicks from the organic section. So, there are different ways you can utilize the thumb tag. I typically, if it’s a service company, like to have some sort of call to action like a phone number, something that my potential customers could be looking for.  So, having your brand name, your phone number, your email address, and fixing sort of call to action in that thumbnail are really critical.

Senthil: So, Ted, can you give us an example? So now that you, you explained, you know, how the thumbnail should look like, and what are the details that need to be added, I’ll give you one example. If it’s a roofing company in Minneapolis, how do you frame a title for this thing? What is the best practice for that?

Ted: So, I would do Minneapolis roofing company that’d be in the beginning, and then I would have from that standpoint that you could go with a call for a free roofing inspection and then have the phone number there. That would be ideal, or you could just type in the Minneapolis roofing company. I think utilizing the brand name with the keyword that you’re trying to rank for helps, and also puts you in a situation where you don’t look too spammy. You don’t want to spam your title. So I think just utilizing the keyword with the brand name or either going with the keyword and then having free roofing inspection and then having the phone number are different ways I would go about that.

Senthil: Okay, perfect. So now we have framed the videos with the titles thumbnails, the description and also most importantly the type of video and how we promote it. So, now, can we dig a bit deeper on how we promote it? Organically, is building backlinks for these videos should help rank it up?

Ted: Yes, they definitely help. One of the things that I’ve discovered is sharing a video throughout Pinterest; you can also share that same video on Facebook and Twitter. The other thing that I found was, in medium.com, we add all videos to that platform and what happens is, if for some reason, your video doesn’t get to the first page then if you add the video to the medium platform, that platform will get there for you. And then there’s been cases where we have actually had the YouTube video to show up, and the medium.com video showed up that we added the YouTube video too. And then, there’s a Google blog platform that you can utilize.

Senthil: Wow. Great. Okay. That’s, that’s a good list for beginners to start with. Do you have anything else to add to this conversation?

Ted: The one thing I will add is, Instagram, it is another platform for local businesses that you can utilize. That’s a great platform, but it’s a little bit structured differently. We actually have a website SEOforvideos.com where we post different blog topics on different strategies and utilize video throughout social media. So, you know, that might be a great platform to check out, just to learn different tactics to help you move your videos up in the Google search.

Senthil:  Great. So guys, we will be linking out to the website so you guys can check it out. There are many interesting articles specific to how to do SEO for videos, and blogs around that, so feel free to check that out.

Feel free to ask us any comments or suggestions. Ted will be happy to answer you all. So that’s it for us today. Thank you so much, guys, for listening to the show. Take care. Bye.