The first attempts at live streaming videos were made as long ago as the 1990s. But back then, the effect was significantly decreased by small bandwidths and low quality of a video. It wasn’t until quite recently that both these factors achieved the values that made producing them worthwhile. Likewise, watching live streaming videos has gone from being a nuisance to being pleasant or fun.
By now, the Internet is rife with websites and platforms that utilize live video streaming to excellent effect. This means that you can repeat their success.
Videos can improve the SEO ranking of your website in many ways. For example, it can increase page dwell time (i.e., the average amount of time that visitors spend on your page).
Search engines, at least supposedly, reward websites people spend a lot of time on. So videos, especially live streaming videos, can really help your stats.
In this article, we will cover some ways in which you can improve some SEO factors of your website using this tool.
1. Utilize Proven SEO Best Practices
Your first step is a purely technical one: you have to make sure you utilize all the best SEO practices.
They have proved their efficiency on the page with your video to increase the likelihood of it being visited in the first place. All your hard work to improve quality and produce the best possible content won’t do much if nobody sees the page. Some of these practices are:
- Assigning a unique keyword for the page (i.e., using a keyword that isn’t used for any other page of your resource);
- Using this keyword in the video’s title. Hashtags can also be really helpful for platforms like Twitter and Instagram;
- Add title and description meta tags and insert the keyword into them at least once apiece;
- If you host your video on an external platform, make sure to place a link back to your website so that viewers can learn more about you, your brand and products;
- Insert the keyword into the page’s URL;
- Write no less than 300 words of unique text for the page, making sure it contains some useful information. Don’t forget to introduce the keyword at least once (preferably in the first paragraph);
- Add images with alt text containing the keyword.
2. Spread the Word
Live events can have a great impact on the influx of organic traffic, but the problem with them is that they are by definition limited in time. If the visitor doesn’t manage to visit your website when they are streamed, s/he misses them. This can be somewhat alleviated by using software like Movavi. This streaming video recorder gives one an opportunity to record a stream to watch it later. However, these videos make the most impact when they are streamed, and you shouldn’t rely too much on their lasting appeal.
That is why you should do everything to let everyone who may be interested know about the event. Share the news via social media platforms, mailing lists and any other venues you can think about. This will build anticipation for the event and guarantee that you will have a fair amount of viewers as you stream.
3. Create an Attractive Thumbnail
This one is going to speak directly to the viewers and is most likely going to be the first impression a visitor gets about your video. That’s why you should put every effort into making it as engaging as possible. This means not trusting automatic thumbnail creators. It’s far better to use special tools.
This way you can either go through the entire video to find a good moment or create a custom image to better express the video’s contents. You may want to place a face on the thumbnail – studies show that people get attracted by the images of faces. That they help them better connect to the image, and you should make full use of this.
4. Invest in Good Equipment
Not precisely an SEO tip, but this preliminary step will go a long way towards building and maintaining your audience. People nowadays are extremely picky in terms of video content and won’t be happy to watch blurry videos with faltering audio. If you don’t want two-thirds of your audience to leave within the first five minutes of your stream, get some decent equipment at the first opportunity.
5. Make the Video the Centerpiece of Your Page
When deciding upon the placement of the video, try to introduce it as early as possible. It should be the most important thing on the page, and although the additional content is still valuable, the video shouldn’t drown in it. The thing is, the sooner the visitor sees it, the more likely he is to click it. The more likely he is to start watching it, the longer he is going to stay on the page, boosting your dwell time.
6. Deliver Quality
Make sure you produce quality content. Video is by definition time-consuming to watch – it is often faster to read the text imparting the same amount of information. It means that you should make the time spent on your page worth it. Although video streams are high on improvisation, this doesn’t mean you should let yourself make up things as you go along, especially if you don’t have a talent for this. Prepare the script beforehand and make sure to learn it.
7. Use No More Than One Embedded Video Per Page
Although sometimes it may be a reasonable idea thematically, Google doesn’t show more than one embedded video per page. Which means that everything beyond the first one is going to be wasted effort.
In Closing
Live streaming videos can be extremely useful for attracting traffic and improving the SEO of your website. However, they are quite an effort to produce.- and time-intensive tools that require careful application to achieve efficiency. We hope that the tips we’ve given in this article are going to be of help to you in your initial steps of using it.
Any Tips You Can Add?
Do you use live streaming videos? If so, where? Can you share a tip or two on what your fellow readers should do and/or avoid doing? Thanks in advance!
You may also want to read: Live Stream Like a Pro: Captivate your Audience with Live Video
Attract More Followers For Your Business with Live Streaming
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David Gutierrez
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