{"id":38295,"date":"2025-08-28T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/?p=38295"},"modified":"2025-08-21T15:16:46","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T22:16:46","slug":"accessible-videos-next-seo-hack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/accessible-videos-next-seo-hack","title":{"rendered":"Accessible Videos Are the Next SEO Hack. Here\u2019s How to Do It Right."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Video content is exploding across search, social media, and AI-generated answers, but few optimize for discoverability or accessibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When people think of SEO, the first things that come to mind might be text based: keywords, backlinks, page speed, etc., but Google search has changed. AI-powered answers, video-first social feeds, and platforms like LinkedIn are all prioritizing video. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To stand out, your videos need to be structured and accessible with captions, transcripts, metadata, and tags that machines can actually read. These not only give Google more to crawl, but they also help you reach wider audiences, boost engagement, and signal that you’re creating inclusive content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This guide walks you through how to make video assets SEO-ready and accessible using Cloudinary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to Automate Alt Text, Tagging, and Structured Data With Cloudinary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Uploading videos is straightforward, but making them searchable, discoverable, and accessible to search engines is where most fall short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cloudinary can help automate many of these tasks, such as making it easy to add relevant tags to your video using the Google Video AI add-on<\/a>. You can also add alt text and captions to your videos when uploading. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this post, we\u2019ll use the Cloudinary SDK<\/a> to handle uploads. You can download it using the command below:<\/p>\n\n\n

<code<\/span>><\/span>npm install cloudinary<\/code<\/span>><\/span><\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> HTML, XML<\/span> (<\/span>xml<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\n
After signing in, go to your Cloudinary dashboard<\/a> and copy the following details: Cloud Name<\/strong>, API Key<\/strong>, and API Secret<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Product
Cloudinary API keys from its dashboard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
You can store these details in environment variables and configure Cloudinary at the top of your script like this:<\/p>\n\n\n
import<\/span> cloudinary from<\/span> 'cloudinary'<\/span>;\n\ncloudinary.config({\n  cloud_name<\/span>: CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME,\n  api_key<\/span>: CLOUDINARY_API_KEY,\n  api_secret<\/span>: CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET,\n});<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> JavaScript<\/span> (<\/span>javascript<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\n
To start, use the same cloudinary instance you configured earlier to upload a video and pass metadata using the context field. This allows you to add features <\/a>such as alt text and captions.<\/p>\n\n\n
cloudinary.uploader.upload('video.mp4'<\/span>, {\n  resource_type<\/span>: 'video'<\/span>,\n  context<\/span>: 'caption=This is a test video|alt=Test Video'<\/span>\n})<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> JavaScript<\/span> (<\/span>javascript<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\n
The example above adds the caption and alt text, separated by the | character, all in one string. Cloudinary will split this up and store it like this:<\/p>\n\n\n
\"context\"<\/span>: {\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \"custom\"<\/span>: {\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \"alt\"<\/span>: \"Test Video\"<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \"caption\"<\/span>: \"This is a test video\"<\/span>\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 }\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 },<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> JavaScript<\/span> (<\/span>javascript<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\n
\"Available
Google Video Tagging add-on<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Click the add-on and subscribe to the free plan:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"In
Subscribe to the free plan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Now, when you attach categorization: ‘google_video_tagging’ in your upload, Cloudinary will generate tags like this:<\/p>\n\n\n
\"info\"<\/span>: {\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \"categorization\"<\/span>: {\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \"google_video_tagging\"<\/span>: {\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \"data\"<\/span>: [\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 { \"tag\"<\/span>: \"solar power\"<\/span>, \"confidence\"<\/span>: 0.98<\/span> },\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 { \"tag\"<\/span>: \"cityscape\"<\/span>, \"confidence\"<\/span>: 0.91<\/span> }\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ]\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 }\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 }\n\n\u00a0 },<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> JavaScript<\/span> (<\/span>javascript<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\n
These tags are useful for organizing your video library, enabling search filters, and improving semantic SEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GET https:\/\/api.cloudinary.com\/v1_1\/<cloud_name<\/span>><\/span>\/resources\/video\/upload\/<public_id<\/span>><\/span><\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> HTML, XML<\/span> (<\/span>xml<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\n
And you\u2019ll get a detailed response that looks like this:<\/p>\n\n\n
{\n\n\u00a0 \"secure_url\"<\/span>: \"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/...\/video.mp4\"<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \"context\"<\/span>: {\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \"custom\"<\/span>: {\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \"alt\"<\/span>: \"Test Video\"<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \"caption\"<\/span>: \"This is a test video\"<\/span>\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 }\n\n\u00a0 },\n\n\u00a0 \"info\"<\/span>: {\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \"categorization\"<\/span>: {\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \"google_video_tagging\"<\/span>: {\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \"data\"<\/span>: [\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 { \"tag\"<\/span>: \"solar power\"<\/span>, \"confidence\"<\/span>: 0.98<\/span> },\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 { \"tag\"<\/span>: \"cityscape\"<\/span>, \"confidence\"<\/span>: 0.91<\/span> }\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ]\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 }\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 }\n\n\u00a0 },\n\n\u00a0 \"duration\"<\/span>: 196<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \"width\"<\/span>: 1280<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \"height\"<\/span>: 720<\/span>\n\n}<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> JSON \/ JSON with Comments<\/span> (<\/span>json<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\n
Structured data is a special format that gives search engines extra context about what\u2019s on your page. For video content specifically, there\u2019s a dedicated format called VideoObject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This schema markup is written in JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data). It sits inside a <script type=\"application\/ld+json\"><\/code> block in your HTML and provides structured data that search engines can read without rendering the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You wrap it all up in a <script><\/code> tag like this:<\/p>\n\n\n
<script<\/span> type<\/span>=\"application\/ld+json\"<\/span>><\/span>\n\n{\n\n\u00a0 \"@context\"<\/span>: \"https:\/\/schema.org\"<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \"@type\"<\/span>: \"VideoObject\"<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \"name\"<\/span>: \"This is a test video\"<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \"description\"<\/span>: \"Test Video\"<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \"thumbnailUrl\"<\/span>: \"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/your_cloud\/video\/upload\/thumbnail.jpg\"<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \"uploadDate\"<\/span>: \"2025-06-12\"<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \"contentUrl\"<\/span>: \"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/your_cloud\/video\/upload\/video.mp4\"<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \"duration\"<\/span>: \"PT3M16S\"<\/span>,\n\n\u00a0 \"keywords\"<\/span>: [\"solar power\"<\/span>, \"cityscape\"<\/span>]\n\n}\n\n<\/span><\/script<\/span>><\/span><\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> HTML, XML<\/span> (<\/span>xml<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\n
Let\u2019s break it down:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now you\u2019ve got everything you need to describe the video in a way search engines understand. The next step is to wrap it in structured data<\/a> (JSON-LD<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once your video is uploaded, Cloudinary stores everything. You (or your dev) can then grab this data by calling Cloudinary\u2019s Admin API<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n
You can also auto-generate tags using the Google Video Tagging Add-on<\/a>. To use this add-on, search for the Google AI Video Transcription<\/strong> add-on on your Cloudinary dashboard:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With all of this set up, let\u2019s now see how to upload a video and add both contextual metadata<\/a> and categorization tags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019ll need a Cloudinary account to access your credentials, which allow you to interact with the Cloudinary SDK. If you don\u2019t have an account yet, sign up at Cloudinary<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n