Content marketing has opened up huge marketing opportunities in the form of online promotion of products/services by marketers. This platform is also used to build the goodwill of the company. The added advantage of content marketing is that there are a lot more platforms offering an opportunity to promote the products/services through video as well.
Compared to just audio, the video has several advantages that include more and positive impression in the minds of the viewer about the product being viewed by him. Videos can get a 41% high click-through rate than just plain text. This amply indicates that the video is having the edge over plain text.
As explained above, there are many platforms offering the promotion of video content by marketers. Given the attractive marketplace that this platform is offering, many marketers are queuing to get their pie of share this platform. As a result, there are more, and a number of videos (on almost all subjects) are available.
Under these circumstances, the marketer has to ensure that this video is unique and is able to get a better response. There are steps to ensure the best video output clubbed with strategies to ensure a better response. All these strategies are open to all other marketers as well, the marketer is required to follow certain special strategies, and one of the strategies is ‘SiteMap’.
What is a sitemap? The sitemap is just an index in the form of a text file containing the information about the video like the title, content, duration, the targeted audience, etc. This information (in the form of a Site Map) is to be submitted to Google so that it can divert better traffic to the site. This is going to add to the success of the strategy of the marketer. Setting up a new sitemap is very easy. The market needs to create new word documents and save them as XML files & upload them to his server. Sitemaps.org outlined certain requirements to do a sitemap.
Self Hosted Website Video Sitemaps
Self-hosting means uploading the video to the site of the marketer by himself, using the built-in file uploader (as available in Word Press). As the marketer has the freedom to create his own content, he is at liberty to host his content as well. The process is very simple and involves the following steps:
• Create new post.
• Choose the ‘Video’ post format.
• Write a bit about the video.
• Upload video to the media library.
Though it seems that simple, there are certain limitations due to which self-hosting is discouraged. Some of the flaws could include server bandwidth, file size limits & storage space on the server, uploading/downloading speed of the video, etc.
Video Sitemaps for Word Press:
Word Press is offering a facility for the marketer to create a sitemap for his video and it is a very easy process as well. He can use the relevant plug-in (my video sitemap) to generate XML sitemap. After installing the plug-in, just click the ‘generate’ button and an XML sitemap file is automatically created and it is instantaneous.
YouTube Embed Video Sitemaps
Sitemap is offering benefits like:
• It makes Google aware of the content.
• There is a range of details through the schema.
• Additional presence on video.google.com search is possible.
How to use Video Sitemaps to bring more leads
- Create a dedicated, short video sitemap
- Use relevant hashtags
- Make a 10 min video, with intro and outro and link in the video description
- Include clickable hotspots for easy social sharing
- Link to similar videos and relevant landing pages in the video description area
- Create a title, keywords, location-based videos
Where should you start with video marketing?
- Create a video sitemap
- Set up a YouTube channel and get it verified
- Make your own Reel Videos using tools like movie maker or Animoto
- Reach out to influencers in your niche – (not on IG) to repost your videos.
- Monetize your videos via Adsense and Facebook sponsored posts
Video Sitemap Advantages
- It’s easier than ever to get ranked organically
- New video formats produce better results
- Non-profits and small businesses can take advantage of Google’s Video Sitemap to rank better and grow their audience or customers cost-effectively.
- It’s easy, free, and fast, and it just might change your life for the better.
- There is no longer a need for expensive
- Embed social proof
- Connect with influencers in your niche
- Optimize for keywords
- Promote your sitemap to get more views
- Add proper keywords in title and video description
- Sitemap advertising is top of page
- Highly targeted
- Results in lower costs per click
- Access to specific audiences (based on users’ interests)
- Fast load time
- Works well on mobile devices
- Optimized for SEO and local businesses
- Can easily track success and ROI
- Increased organic traffic
- Better rankings for videos
- Streamlined video uploading
- Save money and make your own site mapping videos
- Have the time to get more content
- Get access to a variety of free video editing software
- It avoids the distractions of ads
- Not everyone understands the word SEO
- Promoting video helps increase traffic and sales
- Know how YouTube ranks videos for search
As such many of the sites (including YouTube) want the videos to contain site map.
As site map is offering many benefits for the SEO operations, and it is also easy to create and use sitemap marketers need to use this wonderful technique to ensure maximum success for his videos.
