Is Your Webinar SEO-Friendly? A Guide to Creating Effective Content

Creating webinars is an important part of the lead generation process within the value chain of a product or service.

95% of respondents from a recent survey reported using webinars to generate leads, with 76% saying that webinars helped them gain more leads. In other words, running webinars can significantly improve your chance of increasing your customer base.

But creating a webinar and hitting publish isn’t enough. To get more eyes on your webinar, you need optimization strategies.

In this article, we’ll explain 8 strategies you need to make your webinar SEO-friendly.

8 ways to make your webinar video SEO-friendly

Here are our top tips for optimizing your webinar for SEO.

1. Research video keywords

Hosting video webinars (or adding video content) is a great way to boost your webinar’s potential and grab your audience’s attention. Top SEO experts recommend hosting webinars on ad-free private video platforms and avoiding YouTube because of their default video SEO features. A combination of machine and manual effort will definitely boost your search engine visibility, which is where video keyword research comes in.

Video keyword research involves finding keywords and key phrases that people use when they’re searching for online video content whether it is created by a browser-based video maker or from a professional tool. Most video keyword research focuses on popular platforms like YouTube and Vimeo.

If you can identify what keywords people are using when searching for videos, you can optimize for those keywords so that your videos are shown at the top of search results.

For instance, on YouTube, when you start typing into the search bar, there is a feature called ‘Autocomplete’ that suggests popular keywords underneath the search bar. The suggestions that you see are great keywords to optimize your videos around.

Another way to find high-performing keywords on YouTube is by studying which ones have already been seen to work for your competitors.

Simply head over to one of their channels (stick to channels that have around the same amount of subscribers as you do), click their ‘Videos’ tab, sort by ‘Most Popular,’ and look at the type of keywords used in their video titles and descriptions.

If you’re looking to batch your SEO webinar content and don’t want to spend time manually searching for Autocomplete suggestions or competitors’ keywords, you can use a tool like KeywordTool.io to help you discover hundreds of suggestions.

2. Optimize your video

Once you’ve completed your video keyword research, here’s how to use those keywords to rank higher in video searches:

• Optimize your video title: Choose a headline that’s clickable, captivating, and includes one or two keywords or a key phrase. Don’t just stuff a bunch of keywords into your title but keep it interesting and relevant. YouTube and other platforms can take your video down if it looks like you’re violating their policies.
• Craft an engaging description: Write a description that speaks to the value of your content. What’s your video about? What value will your audience gain by watching it? What can they expect to learn or walk away with when your video is over? Be sure to include relevant keywords and phrases that naturally fit into the text at the beginning of the description.
• Insert a video transcript: Sometimes, video platforms like YouTube automatically generate subtitles depending on a few factors like sound quality, language, and video length. But when they do generate subtitles, the results can be inaccurate. To avoid this, add an actual transcript manually. Be sure to use keywords and key phrases in your webinar so that the transcript can be optimized as well. If you know how to transcribe video to text, you should capitalize on that!

3. Use categories and tags

Adding categories and/or tags to your SEO webinars makes it easier for other people to find them on tag and category pages and works towards efficient content optimization. For instance, Vimeo members can select up to two categories and one subcategory, along with up to 20 relevant hashtags for each video.

Here are some best practices when using categories and tags on your webinars:

• Use relevant keywords whenever possible.
• Create a branded hashtag that no one else uses, like #HappyLiveWebinaring, which can distinguish your brand from others across various channels.
• Use hashtags that popular competitors or trending videos are using.
• Stick to three or four relevant hashtags, and don’t add more hashtags than you’re allowed to use or your video will be removed (i.e., on YouTube, there’s a limit of 15 hashtags, and on Vimeo, it’s up to 20).
• Use a hashtag tool to help you decide which hashtags have the most potential.

4. Research SERP keywords

What ranks well on video platforms doesn’t necessarily rank well on Google, and vice versa.

Once your video keyword research and optimization are complete, research SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) keywords to market your webinar on landing pages, blogs, websites, and paid advertisements. Adding relevant SERP keywords allows your webinar to be picked up by major search engines such as Google and Bing. You can leverage the power of SERP API structured data to help you promote webinars online and track the performance of your SEO campaign, as well as identify opportunities for improvement.

For instance, if your SEO webinar is about productivity tips, you’ll want its product landing pages to rank as high up in search engine results pages as possible, like these top four results on Google.

To rank as high as possible, you’ll need to either pay for advertising or a target content score using a SERP research tool like:

• Google AdWords Keyword Planner
• MarketMuse
• SurferSEO
• Outranking
• Keywords Everywhere
• Clearscope
• Google Trends
• Topic

To start your research, think about the topics you want your webinar to rank for. E.g. if it is about finding the right college, come up with 5 to 10 related topics. Then, use your keyword research tool to help you pull high-ranking keywords related to those topics. This is only a small part of a comprehensive SEO sprint yet one you cannot overlook. 

For instance, if your topic is a ‘nursing program,’ you’ll pull keywords like ‘nursing program,’ ‘registered nurse,’ and ‘nursing.’ With a target score of 40, you’ll need to add around 40 keywords to hit it.

Once you’ve created your topics and researched high-ranking and relevant keywords, you’ll have a collection of topic clusters that you can use for landing pages, blog posts, and other related content.

If you’re not interested in planning that far ahead, stick with a few topics at a time.

Lastly, consider setting up a SERP tracker to measure your progress for target keywords. You’ll be able to see daily fluctuations in ranking positions and figure out if you’re on the right track or if you need to change tact. Depending on your budget, you might want to use either a rank tracker that is part of a wider toolset (e.g. Semrush) or a purpose-built standalone tracker like Wincher or AccuRanker.

Here’s a good resource to help you choose a SERP tracking tool depending on your existing tech stack, budget, and needs.

5. Optimize your landing pages

Once you’ve conducted your SERP keyword research and categorized your topics into clusters, use your targeted keywords to create optimized webinar landing pages.

For instance, some examples of landing pages that you can optimize are your webinar registration pages and upcoming event reminder pages.

You can really optimize any page that ties into your event or brand (like a giveaway page or a blog post).

You also want to make sure all of your landing pages are optimized for technical SEO, including:

• Titles, i.e., “ webinar registration”
• Meta descriptions
• Headers (H1, H2, H3 tags)
• Internal links
• On-page body copy

Additionally, all users should have access to the relevant information they need, like the webinar’s date and time, the duration of the event, a description of it, who’s going to be speaking, and what value they’ll gain by attending.

Finally, include a captivating image or video of your upcoming event and an easily visible registration link with a tracking code (for analytics).

Note: Optimize your landing pages for desktop and mobile so users will get the best experience possible regardless of device. You’ll also need to keep an eye on lag times to avoid high bounce rates and integrate a chatbot to speed up customer service too.

6. Optimize your blog

Using keywords to optimize your blog and promote your webinar is a fantastic way to boost its SEO presence. Here are some tips:

Create a knowledge base

You don't have a knowledge base yet? Time to change it.

One of the best ways to tell search engines that you’re a high-authority site (and therefore should be ranked higher in SERPs) is by creating an optimized collection of articles around your expertise, or a so-called ‘knowledge base.’ According to many books about SEO, establishing this level of brand authority before creating webinars will instantly make them more SEO-friendly, simply because search engines will consider you to be a trusted expert.

Create blog content around your webinar

Creating several pieces of content that can stand alone or be included as part of a ‘set’ is a great way to create optimized articles that relate to your webinar. These are also called ‘topic clusters’, which we touched on earlier in the SERP research section. The more relevant optimized articles, the better chance you have of ranking high on search engines.

For example, if your webinar is about ‘work from home tips,’ your topic clusters could be:

• What it’s really like to work from home.
• How to establish boundaries with your family when you work from home.
• The top 5 ways to maintain a work/life balance when working from home.
• The pros and cons of working from home.

Use link-building strategies

There are two ways to use links to boost your webinar’s SEO presence: embed either internal links into your own content or get high authority backlinks from guest posts (someone else’s content - find out how to fill a backlinks gap at Linkhouse). For example, if you set up a webinar around the best HR practices and companies, make sure you have content on your own blog to link to, like this post for example. Also, consider guest posting for other high-authority sites so that you can include backlinks to blog posts that market your webinar.

7. Publish snippets of your webinar

One of the best ways to entice people to attend your webinar is by publishing snippets of it on your website and blog.

This works well if you’re not going live and you’ve already recorded this webinar or another similar one as part of a series. If neither is the case, you can use these tips after recording.

For example, here’s Nlyte’s data center infrastructure webinar that was published on their website.

You can also embed snippets of your webinar in other places, like:

• Guest posts
• Blog posts
• Registration pages
• Social media
• Landing pages
• Email newsletters

8. Promote your webinar on other channels

Promoting your webinar on other channels like social media is one of the best ways to go viral or, at the very least, spread the word about your webinar. Here are some ways to promote your webinar on social media:

Optimize your social media posts

We’ve covered video SEO and SERP SEO, but social media also has its own SEO too. Similar to video SEO, you can use the ‘Autocomplete’ feature on several social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest to discover what users are searching for. You can also keep an eye on competitors to see which keywords they’re using in social media posts. The same goes for hashtags and categories, but just make sure to research the limits on each channel you use. In addition, you can use SMM panel services to boost engagement on your social media events posts. By doing so, you'll generate buzz about your event online. 

Create optimized content native to each platform

When deciding which keywords, categories, and hashtags to use for each channel, it’s important to keep in mind each platform’s interface and audience. For example, reels might work better on Instagram and TikTok, while videos may do so on Facebook. When planning your posts, make sure to use content that’s in the right context — don’t just copy and paste an Instagram post to Facebook or vice versa. 

Consider using giveaways and contests

Giveaways and contests are a great way to encourage users to sign up for your webinar sooner. Even something simple like, “sign up for our ‘What’s New in Technology’ webinar by Friday for the chance to win a free iPhone 12” is a great way to motivate users to attend. Using giveaway coupons with custom QR codes is a great way to drive high-intent traffic to your website from activation campaigns.

Direct message your audience

A strategy most popularized on Linkedin, there’s no reason you can’t formally send a direct message or cold email to potential prospects. The same applies for Facebook messenger or Instagram if you keep it personal. If you use the gmail desktop app you can actually message directly from it, making it easier to update your contact lists.

Wrap up

Making sure your webinar is SEO-friendly is crucial to creating effective content for browsers.

Remember, the key is to focus on video SEO when optimizing your webinar on video platforms like YouTube or Vimeo, SERP SEO when optimizing landing pages, blogs, and websites for search engines, or social media SEO when optimizing social media posts.

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