6 ways Vimeo maximizes your video SEO impact

How to unlock Vimeo's SEO benefits to help boost your organic traffic

At Vimeo, we're continuously working on new capabilities and enhancements to help ensure your videos make the most organic SEO impact possible. Here's our list of the six most important things you need to know when it comes to Vimeo and SEO:

1. Vimeo helps embedded videos send traffic to your site, not ours

Vimeo enables you to keep your videos unlisted on Vimeo while still reaping the SEO benefits for your video marketing strategy. When embedded on your website, these videos still appear in Google search results, driving traffic directly to your domain rather than back to Vimeo. If you’re selling a product on your website, of course you’ll want your product video result in Google to send traffic to your domain!

This feature, made possible by the "indexifembedded" code, gives you control over visibility without sacrificing SEO potential. Vimeo, unlike YouTube and other video-hosting platforms using iframes, offers its customers a distinct advantage with this special code. Google even wrote a case study about it.

However, note that Google has the power to require your embedded video be the main content of the page in order to index it.

2. Vimeo automatically generates essential SEO code

We automatically generate important code that is attached to your Vimeo videos, providing search engines with valuable details about your video content. Video schema markup is a code in the form of structured data that is like a VIP pass — it helps search engines understand what your video is about. This can allow your videos to get noticed and indexed more effectively for keyword searches related to the topics in your video. 

Put another way that answers what is video schema markup: it makes search engines better understand and display your video content on Google and other search engines. This automatic code can tell Google what the video title is, what the video description is, and even what the video transcript is. The important keywords and topics in those fields help your video show up in search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google.

3. Vimeo can automatically update video chapters to support key moments

Adding chapters to your Vimeo videos isn't just about enhancing viewer experience — it's a strategic SEO move. With a Vimeo Starter plan or above, you can add video chapters to your videos. These video chapters are eligible for Google's Key Moments featured snippet, which highlights specific video sections in search results. This not only can improve visibility but also helps entice viewers with a sneak peek into your content.

4. Vimeo’s RSS feeds ensure your most recent videos get noticed

Vimeo enhanced its RSS feeds to list the most recently added videos by a profile. This seemingly small change has a significant impact on SEO. Search engines, particularly Google, frequently crawl RSS feeds as a reliable source of fresh content. By optimizing its RSS feeds, Vimeo provides search engines with a direct line to your latest videos, increasing the likelihood of them being discovered and indexed quickly. This is a valuable feature for creators who regularly upload new content and want to ensure their videos get in front of their audience as soon as possible.

5. Vimeo boasts a high-quality, search-engine-optimized video player

Vimeo's online video player isn't just sleek — it's high-quality, whether people are viewing your videos on desktop, mobile, or tablet. Fast loading times, mobile responsiveness, and accessibility features contribute to a seamless user experience — a factor that search engines reward with higher rankings. 

6. Vimeo leverages ad-free video to keep users engaged

The 2024 Google API leak revealed that Google uses engagement metrics. These interaction metrics may help determine which pages are considered more relevant to rank on Google for a given keyword. Since our player is ad-free, this can keep viewers engaged rather than drop off when an ad starts playing. Longer view times may be considered beneficial to Google, rewarding videos with longer view times. 

Other engagement metrics like Interaction Counter and ViewAction code, in the context of SEO, are ways Vimeo measures viewer engagement with your content, which can indirectly influence your search engine rankings. Views, likes, and other metrics may help Google understand user behavior on your site, potentially leading to rich results in search, which can increase visibility and click-through rates. 

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Your video SEO action plan

While our platform provides you with a robust SEO framework, here are a few ways you can maximize your Vimeo video's reach even more:

• Use Vimeo’s AI tools available on Advanced plans and above to help generate captivating titles and descriptions that tell visitors, LLMs, and web crawlers what your video is about.
• Include a transcript to provide additional text-based context for search engines to crawl. Additionally, using tags and categories may also help provide context to your videos.
• Embed your Vimeo videos prominently on your web pages, ideally "above the fold" for maximum visibility to search engine crawlers.
• Share and promote your videos on social media and relevant platforms to increase visibility and attract links back to your site. Traffic from less obvious channels, like social media platforms, is valuable because Google can still track visitors that come to your site through those platforms as well.
• Catch up on all the general video SEO best practices to give your embedded videos the best chance of success.

Our platform’s video SEO puts creators, businesses, and brands first

When it comes to video SEO, Vimeo stands out from competitors, like YouTube, by prioritizing your brand's visibility and website traffic. By leveraging our powerful SEO features and following best practices, you can ensure that your videos get the attention they deserve, helping drive more viewers, engagement, customers, and, ultimately, business impact.