Search engine optimization and video: Six ways to rank higher on google.

You have a website. You want your site to show up on the first page or two of a google search. With millions of pages on the web, how do you make it to the front of the line? The answer lies in search engine optimization (SEO) … and video is an important tool in effective SEO.

A recent Business Week article finds that “videos are 53 percent more likely to appear on the first page of search results than text pages.”

Web pages with a video embedded have an 11,000 to 1 chance of landing on the first page of google results, compared to a half-million to 1 chance of a text page making it to page one.

Here are a few ways to get your video ranked higher on a google search:

1. Upload to YouTube and embed the code on your site. Almost always, when a video shows up in a google “blended” search (meaning the search shows a mix of photos, text pages, maps, news stories, etc.), it is a video that has been uploaded first to YouTube.

2. Don’t limit yourself to YouTube. Use TubeMogul to upload and tag your video once, and have it instantly placed on a number of video sharing sites like Blip, Revver, Vimeo, Facebook, and others. Tubemogul also offers solid analytics tools that will give you lots of graphs showing who is watching your videos.

3. Link and encourage links. Google looks at links to and from your site as “votes” for your site’s relevance. Encourage Facebook and Twitter friends and fans to link to your video on their blogs and websites.

4. Surround your video with “engagement items.” Things like interactive maps, photos, video and audio are ways to make visitors come to your page more often and stick around longer when they get there.

5. Practice on-page SEO. On-page search engine optimization means including keywords and phrases that help visitors find each video you make. Embed your video on a page that includes text with copy that relates to the video. This will help google find you much easier.

6. Don’t forget the “call to action.” If you are posting your video as a marketing tool, chances are you want the viewer to do something after watching the video (buy your product, make a donation, register for a class, etc.). Don’t forget to tell them what to do next. Include your URL within your video. You should also put your URL in the description field on YouTube.