Video captivates audiences, boosts engagement, and drives brand awareness. For savvy marketers, the platform you choose for online hosting and embedding your videos isn't just about views. It’s about where you want viewers to end up, and what they do afterward.
If you don't want to compete with rivals' ads (or distracting content like cat videos), then one thing is clear — Vimeo can help both protect your brand and boost your traffic. So let's dive into how Vimeo and YouTube treat video search engine optimization (SEO) and uncover which platform truly reigns supreme for maximizing your video's traffic potential.
Video SEO is more important than ever before
First, let's clarify why video SEO should be a top priority. When a video page ranks higher on a search engine like Google, this can translate to increased visitors, enhanced brand visibility, and ultimately, more engagement, purchases, or other conversions.
As marketers, brands, and businesses, you probably want to embed videos on your own website to assist sign-ups and product purchases. When that embedded video content ranks well on a search engine, you're not just reaching a wider audience — you're reaching the right audience, those actively searching for information related to your products or services, and, of course, a direct link to your site.
Vimeo and YouTube video indexing and embedding secrets
The crux of video SEO lies in how search engines discover and rank your content. Here's where Vimeo and YouTube take divergent paths:
- YouTube’s video traffic: YouTube, being a Google subsidiary, often enjoys preferential treatment in Google’s search results. This means embedding a public YouTube video on your website might result in the YouTube video link showing up first in Google’s results, diverting all that valuable traffic away from your web domain.
- Vimeo's video indexing trick: Vimeo takes a different approach with its unique "indexifembedded" code. This instructs search engines to prioritize the embedded Vimeo video on your website, not the video page on Vimeo. This seemingly small distinction can significantly amplify your website's visibility and organic traffic by sending people to your site rather than Vimeo.
Why Vimeo is better for video privacy and SEO
The handling of unlisted videos further highlights the contrast between the Vimeo and YouTube platforms for SEO:
- YouTube's traffic limitations: Unlisted YouTube videos remain hidden from search results, even when that video is also embedded on your website. This kills your video’s discoverability on search engines, with no way to send that video traffic to your site.
- Vimeo's traffic flexibility: With a paid account, Vimeo allows unlisted videos to appear in search results when embedded. This gives you the best of both worlds: control over who can view your videos directly on Vimeo, while still reaping the SEO benefits of embedded content that goes directly from a search engine to your webpage.
Vimeo and YouTube technical video SEO tools
Let’s get technical! Here are several key factors that influence video SEO and indexing:
- RSS feeds: Vimeo automatically adds an RSS feed to your video profile page. These RSS feeds list the most recently added videos by user profile, making it easier for search engines to discover and index your videos. YouTube does not enable RSS feeds automatically, forcing you to follow very specific steps to do so, potentially leaving search engine ranking and traffic up to chance.
- Helpful code: Both platforms generate something called structured data for your videos, which is the code that helps search engines understand video content. For example, the VideoObject code will contain your video’s title and description to help search engines decide what your video is about and have the video show up in Google searches for those topics. With Vimeo, we add to your VideoObject code to make sure all appropriate fields are completed, and YouTube also uses this code. Vimeo provides additional options like adding the first 3,000 words of your video transcript to this code, which can be read by web crawlers to better understand what your video is about and index it accordingly.
- Automatic video chaptering: YouTube Studio and Vimeo support Google's "key moments" feature, highlighting specific sections of your video in search results. Google Search may display chapters as “key moments,” which can enhance user experience and help boost click-through rates.
- Optimized video thumbnails: Vimeo, like YouTube, supports the latest guidance from Google that the AVIF image format may be used for video thumbnails, which can show up in search results.
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How Vimeo competes with YouTube on brand integrity
If your brand's integrity is essential to you, here are some ways Vimeo differentiates itself from YouTube.
- Vimeo upholds your brand reputation: Vimeo's customizable, ad-free video player ensures your brand remains front and center. YouTube's suggested videos can expose your audience to competitors or unrelated content that doesn’t convert.
- Vimeo’s ad-free promise: YouTube's ads can disrupt the viewer experience (increasing bounce rate), contain inappropriate content, and promote competitors. With Vimeo's ad-free environment and customizable calls-to-action, we help guide viewers toward your desired conversion points.
- Vimeo’s unbeatable customization: Unlike YouTube, Vimeo users can replace an outdated video without changing the URL, and they won’t lose valuable, historical analytics after replacing the video.
- Vimeo’s top-quality video player: When people watch your videos, Vimeo's online video player offers a cleaner, more professional viewing experience than YouTube's. Vimeo's video player boasts superior video quality that uses a higher bitrate than YouTube and supports a superior audio experience with 320 Kbps sound quality.
- Vimeo’s security measures: If you mark a video as unlisted on YouTube, it may still be accessible outside of your organization — to be shared with friends, and competitors, and posted on social media. Vimeo offers robust security measures, like SSO, to ensure your content is extra secure and can’t be accessed by anyone outside of your organization — even with the link or embed code.
Elevate your video SEO strategy with Vimeo
Okay, you’re sold on Vimeo over YouTube and want to learn more about video SEO best practices? To maximize your video SEO efforts, consider these tips:
- Optimize video titles, descriptions, and metadata: Craft compelling video titles, video descriptions, and tags with relevant keywords to increase search engines’ (and users’) understanding of what your video is about. Not to mention, for creators and filmmakers interested in attracting the attention of the Vimeo Staff Picks team, a great title and description are a must.
- Create video chapters: This can improve user experience and enhance your video’s appearance in search results, because Google may display chapters in search.
- Add your video transcript: Like the chapters, transcripts provide context for search engines.
- Promote your videos: Share your videos on social media and other channels to increase visibility and backlinks (links that point back to your video and webpage).
Using Vimeo for SEO success
Both Vimeo and YouTube offer valuable tools for video marketing. However, when it comes to SEO, Vimeo's embedded-focused approach sets it apart. By understanding the nuances of each platform and leveraging Vimeo's SEO advantages, you can propel your video content to new heights in search rankings and achieve greater success in your marketing endeavors. Don’t just take our word for it — Google wrote a case study about Vimeo’s video SEO!
