Video SEO is the practice of optimizing video content and its surrounding page context to improve visibility in search results — including Google's video carousel (appearing within main search results), the dedicated Google Videos tab, and YouTube's own search and recommendation engine. Key video SEO elements include a descriptive, keyword-informed title; a detailed page description that supplements the video with at least 150–300 words of supporting text; VideoObject schema markup (declaring duration, thumbnail URL, and upload date in JSON-LD); a click-worthy custom thumbnail; and full transcripts or closed captions that give search engines readable text from the video's content. YouTube-hosted videos have an inherent search advantage because YouTube functions as a large search engine with its own recommendation algorithm. Self-hosted videos with correct VideoObject schema can still capture rich result placements in Google, but benefit less from YouTube's organic distribution.
Glossary entry
