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General Discussion

Matthew Smart
Matthew Smart
12,567 Points
Posted by Matthew Smart
Matthew Smart
12,567 Points

SEO optimisation for a video-heavy website

Hello

I am creating a website which will have much more videos than actual text. Now this concerns me as I want the particular site which I can not reveal details about here, to rank within the top 3 on google search engine.

For example purposes, let's say that my website is for providing users with videos of skateboarding. There will be around 20 videos of people skateboarding in skate parks.

Now for the whole style of the website, in design content isn't looking right. I have designed the pages with correct H1 ,H2 ,H3 ,H4 tags. For example:

<h1>Skateboarding videos</h1>

Then a row of 4 videos, these videos will have random names which may not have the words skateboarding, as it would look silly if all the videos had near the same name.

<h2>Watch out best moments in skateboarding</h2>

then another row of 4 videos.

Now in two columns would be something like

<h3>The users voted best skateboarding clip</h3>

Then one big video.

<h3>Check out your nearest skateboarding parks now</h3>

Then a few links to near places.

<h4>Skateboarding products we suggest</h4>

almost like an amazon style of listed products in a row.

So this is not a real website as I can't disclose the idea, however as you can see it will be mostly made up of h tags, very small chunks of paragraph tags, and a lot of video content.

I am a bit of an SEO freak and using Yoast's SEO tool I normally have all of my pages green (passed on everything). However, I know this will not be achievable here.

What would you guys suggest for me to do in this situation/example to bring as much traffic as possible for the search terms like skateboarding videos, skateboarding clips, skateboarding in UK etc... you get the jist.

2 Answers

robinbuzink
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
robinbuzink
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 3,474 Points
robinbuzink
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
robinbuzink
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 3,474 Points

Hey Matthew, you can think of more 'off page seo' methods. Like creating links from other skateboard sites to your site.

I think it's also an idea to create a blog and write blog post (with a minimum of 300 words) about a skateboarding topic.

Let me know when your site is finished!

Matthew Smart
Matthew Smart
12,567 Points
Matthew Smart
Matthew Smart
12,567 Points

Hello, yes i will be pushing the site from other sources as much as possible, setting up a blog.mywebsite.com and linking that to it, trying to do guest blogging, social media pages etc..

I was just thinking if there was anything in specific that could help this page rank up withing the websites code. I'm in a situation where I need to have my website in the first page of google withing 2 months of going live. It is a niche idea with only 4 or 5 other websites like this at the moment, but withing a around 6 months there will be more and more coming out.

Luke Pettway
Luke Pettway
16,593 Points
Luke Pettway
Luke Pettway
16,593 Points

How are you hosting the videos? Assuming you are going the YouTube/Vimeo route, making sure that you are using good titles, keywords, and descriptions and making sure to engage with your viewers will go a long way. Also make sure to reference the site as much as possible.

Having guest bloggers will help a lot too as it will drive more traffic to your site. The hardest part about getting your site to rank on the first page of Google is going to be your domain authority factors based on the age of your domain. It is a new site, so even being a niche category you have to think about what other sites are ranking higher simply from existing longer, as well as social media channels that will rank for those words too.

Currently when I search some of the keywords you listed, I see a lot of sites like http://www.skatevideosite.com/ and http://www.theskatespot.com/ which have a lot of content. However, despite having content, the structures of those sites, the design, and the performance of them are all lacking and could greatly be improved.

One thing that might help you out is to do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis of other sites doing the same thing or similar to what you want. This is something I personally do a lot when I need to be highly competitive with other brands and need detailed information for a solid plan. It can provide you with a wealth of information that you might not have realized without being very focused on the fine details of your competitors.

SWOT Example: http://pas-wordpress-media.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SWOT_example.jpg

Content is the primary king in Google's eyes, so make sure that your content is great, well organized, and that the site itself isn't bloated. Performance and mobile accessibility are important factors as well, so make sure that your sites load time is 2 seconds or less when feasible. One of the previously mentioned sites had a 7 second + loading time!

Hopefully that helps you out some. I've worked at several major retailers who needed to rank highly for some very vague keywords (table lamps, rugs, etc) which was an absolute nightmare but gave me the opportunity to learn very deeply about SEO. The most important take away is that you can't always guarantee you'll rank for any specific keyword, or that you will reach that rank within a set amount of time. It takes persistence and sometimes very deep research into what others are doing. If you can do exactly what your competitors do, but then do just a little bit more that can make a tremendous impact too.