It may seem like a big job, but you can make small tweaks to your video strat­e­gy right now to increase the vis­i­bil­i­ty of your brand’s videos. Let’s look at 10 ways how.

U.S. adults spent 5.5 hours per day con­sum­ing dig­i­tal video in 2015, accord­ing to eMar­keter. We know that plat­forms like YouTube host more than a bil­lion users all over the world, and with the kind of enter­tain­ment and edu­ca­tion on-demand video pro­vides, these are impor­tant moments that mat­ter to con­sumers.

Your Overall Video Strategy

Your video strat­e­gy should take into con­sid­er­a­tion YouTube (the sec­ond largest search engine next to Google), Google Videos (which Google touts as the largest video search prop­er­ty on the Web), and the Uni­ver­sal Search results. Some videos are appro­pri­ate for your web­site and some are bet­ter for YouTube. Often­times, that has to do with the intent of the video (an infor­ma­tion­al prod­uct video on your site ver­sus an inspi­ra­tional video on YouTube) and where your con­sumer is in their deci­sion-mak­ing jour­ney. Videos on your web­site can show up in the Google search results as can your videos from YouTube. Get clear on your strat­e­gy, and use a mix of video on both chan­nels when appro­pri­ate.

Get More Visibility On Your Website

1. Avoid Complex JavaScript or Flash

Con­fig­ure the pages that fea­ture your videos in a search-friend­ly way. Both Flash and com­plex JavaScript can hin­der the search engines from dis­play­ing your videos in the search results.

2. Create a Standalone Page for Each Video

While you may have one land­ing page for all your video con­tent, each indi­vid­ual video should open on a stand­alone page so you can opti­mize for that con­tent like you would any oth­er page.

3. On-Page Optimization

A video on its own has lit­tle text asso­ci­at­ed with it, and text is what helps Google bet­ter under­stand what the video con­tent is about. Cre­ate orig­i­nal meta infor­ma­tion for the page the video is fea­tured on, and upload and for­mat the video tran­script to dis­play on the page under­neath the video – and voila! Ins­ta-arti­cle.

4. Schema Markup

Google rec­om­mends using Schema.org markup on videos for a greater chance of index­ing. The three attrib­ut­es it needs at min­i­mum are title, descrip­tion, and thumb­nail. Make sure the thumb­nail asso­ci­at­ed with your video is good qual­i­ty, too. And that the titles and descrip­tions are unique to each video.

5. Create a Video Sitemap

A video Sitemap can fur­ther Google’s under­stand­ing of what the con­tent is about, thus improv­ing the video’s chance to be shown in the search results. Google gives more guide­lines on its uses here, and sug­gests that along with the Schema markup, the two deliv­er all the infor­ma­tion need­ed for a bet­ter chance of vis­i­bil­i­ty. A com­mon sce­nario, Google says, for using both is to “use on-page markup for all of your videos and a video sitemap to tell Google about any new, time-sen­si­tive, or hard to find videos.”

6. Spot Check: robots.txt

Make sure your robots.txt file does­n’t block any of the video resources Google needs to index the video, includ­ing the page the video is on, the video, or any required markup.

Get More Visibility On YouTube

1. Optimization

Video titles, descrip­tions, and the tags you use to describe the video are impor­tant. Make sure they are entic­ing and use the key search terms you’re after. You can also include any rel­e­vant links to your web­site with in the descrip­tion.

2. Transcripts

Tran­scripts lend even more con­text to the video, let your view­ers scroll through the video con­tent quick­ly, and even assist the hear­ing impaired to access your con­tent. (Cap­tions also avail­able, here.)

3. Engagement

Watch time is an extreme­ly impor­tant met­ric in the YouTube algo­rithm, with YouTube point­ing out that the “algo­rithm for sug­gest­ing videos includes pri­or­i­tiz­ing videos that lead to a longer over­all view­ing ses­sion over those that receive more clicks.” Think about the dif­fer­ent ways you can increase watch time on your videos by check­ing out the infor­ma­tion here.

4. Trends

Know­ing what’s hot right now and becom­ing a rel­e­vant part of that con­ver­sa­tion (if it’s brand appro­pri­ate) can poten­tial­ly give you a boost in vis­i­bil­i­ty. Google real-time trends launched in 2015 and includes YouTube data. Poke around and see what’s hap­pen­ing in your world.