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Transcribing Video Improves SEO: Case Study with SafeNet

SafeNet is one of the top three infotech companies in the world, protecting high-value information for 25,000 customers in over 100 countries. Most high-value software, sensitive corporate information, and money transfers are protected through SafeNet. SafeNet uses 3Play Media to optimize their video SEO strategy. Note: In 2014, SafeNet was acquired by Gemalto securities. This case study explores SafeNet’s video SEO strategy prior to that acquisition.

SafeNet’s Strategies for Video SEO

SafeNet houses hundreds of videos in multiple languages. Key functionalities of their video site include:

• A language selector so visitors can filter between 8 different languages
• Advanced search feature that allows visitors to search by topic, product, language, type of video, or keyword
• SEO-friendly video tagging, such that their topics are all core SEO keyword categories

Within this highly optimized video site, SafeNet has developed sophisticated strategies for video SEO:

• They use SEO-friendly categories and video URLs.
• Their video site is a sub-domain of their corporate domain, allowing the value of their established domain name to carry over.
• They add targeted keywords to video titles, descriptions, meta data, and summaries.
• They use transcripts of videos as a shortcut to maximize keyword usage on a video page.
• They use video sitemaps, which allow Google to see and categorize their videos better in search results.
• They strategically place videos on internal and external sites to build inbound linking value.

The SEO Impact of Video Transcription

SafeNet conducted a 3-week test to see how quickly video transcription could make an impact on SEO, and the results were very exciting. They took one video and transcribed it through 3Play Media. Looking to improve ranking for a specific phrase, they tracked the transcribed video on Bing, Yahoo, and Google.

The targeted phrase searched for was “software licensing in virtual environments”, a core part of SafeNet’s strategy. The first week, the video did not rank (unsurprisingly), but by the second week, it had jumped to #14 on both Bing and Yahoo. In just three weeks, the video ranked on page 1 of both sites.

Google tends to take a little bit longer to rank new content, so they didn’t see movement in search rank immediately. SafeNet’s study shows that even in a short amount of time, you can make a dramatic impact on Bing and Yahoo results by incorporating transcription into your video SEO strategy.

But that’s not all.

The Staying Power of Video Transcription SEO

Three years later, we wanted to check to see how that test page ranks. SafeNet’s video library is still live (with redirection to their acquiring company’s domain), along with on-page video transcripts and multiple language options. We tested that same page again in August, 2016, and here’s what we found:

The SafeNet video page ranks even higher than it used to!

This proves that leveraging on-page video transcripts are a very effective long-term strategy for SEO, too!