Video Search Engine Optimization – Most of us know that a site that’s
well configured for search engine access is a major part of getting
high traffic levels. However, you might not have thought about
optimizing your video as well as the rest of your site. Since multimedia
content is becoming a much more popular way of distributing
information, correct video search engine optimization is important.
For instance, on YouTube alone (which accounts for more than
ninety-eight percent of the videos viewed via Google), more than
eighty-two million people watched over four billion videos last year.
That makes YouTube both the top video sharing site and the top video
search engine.
YouTube receives as much as thirteen hours of new user-submitted
video every minute, and more than fifty percent of the people watching
videos online share links with other people. So, getting a good YouTube
ranking could be an important way to bring people to your site.
For owners of video content, video search engine optimization is a
good way to get exposure, ad income, and free traffic. Being discovered
by the viewers has to happen before you can get lots of views. That
means making sure that your data is rich in meta information, and that
you use quality RSS or MRSS feeds that you update on a regular basis.
Make sure that your meta data is well placed and relevant to the
topic. A cleaner can help you remove distracting or irrelevant meta
information from the file.
Only after you produce well optimized content should you contact the
search engines and submit your video. This places you in the queue of
web crawlers, and means you’ll be indexed more quickly and more often
than if you hadn’t bothered to submit. The more regularly your content
is crawled, the better your chance of rating well on search results.
Index your site on other engines than Google or YouTube. They can
spread your video to other search engines you may not have thought of.
For instance, indexing your site on Blinkx will cause it to show up on
Ask and MSN, among others.
One important part of your strategy should be a series of related
videos. When a viewer sees a video online that he or she likes, there’s a
good likelihood that this viewer will look for others like them. While a
single great video will be popular and welcomed, you’ll do even better
if it’s part of a series.
Use an embedded video player, too. Many viewers will be more inclined
to view your submission if it’s part of your site or blog than if they
had to go to your video hosting service to see it. However, you should
avoid players that use only Flash. Don’t use pop-up players, which annoy
more people than they amuse, and will actually cause you to lose views.
The more views you get, the more likely you are to be picked up by
other sites, linked to, and rank well on video searches. You can even
customize embedded video players to display playlists related to your
company, and adjust the layout, and other information.
Create traffic by placing a video search box on your site. This adds
unique content and boosts ad revenue. Make sure that you create a video
of the appropriate length for your audience, and that you’re looking for
the right response.
You can use analytics to find out how long a customer stays on your
video page, which will tell you if your video is too long. You can also
use analytics to tell you which of your videos get the best response.
Once you know this, you’ll be able to decide which content should be
linked first on your home page.
Remember that no webcrawler has ever bought a product or a service.
If you’re a local business using video to advertise, clicks are a lot
less important than calls. Include a call to action with your contact
information as part of your video – thumbnails are an excellent way to
do this. You can use YouTube to create thumbnails at the quarter, half,
and three-quarter marks. Making sure that you have both a local listing
and a video listing on Google’s Search Engine Results Page also
increases your likelihood of getting visits.
You may also wish to make sure that your videos are high enough
quality for and in the right format for television. Google TV is very
affordable, and lets you create closely targeted video.
Don’t use Active X controls and export all files as swf format. Use
Google Video sitemaps to help with navigation, and build a separate page
for each video, rather than hosting many videos on the same page. Use a
simple text title and description, and optimize that page as you would
any other. Then, link to it from the index page.
Descriptions and titles need to be consistent across all your sites,
and file names should descriptive and make sense to the viewer. Remember
that Different communities require different approaches. Prominent
keywords can help on many sites. However, while keyword rich content
will help videos hosted on your site be noticed by Blinkx or Truveo, it
won’t help on YouTube.
You’ll need to get the attention of the community in general. Video
responses to popular, related videos can help get others to visit your
contribution. Your content will appear in close proximity to videos that
are already popular. Make sure you include an active URL in the
description of your video, and end the video with a mention of the link.
Annotations can help you link to other YouTube videos. Be sure to allow
comments!
Never tag with irrelevant search terms, no matter how popular they
might be. Remember that you need to appeal to real people, rather than
just optimizing blindly. While you might turn up early in a search with
good optimization, an unappealing video will cause people to pass you
by. If you know what kind of content your audience prefers, you’ll be
able to create the right video marketing plan for your business or
organization.
Video search engine optimization is an important part of any video
marketing strategy. If you’re planning to market your business or
organization using multimedia content, creating it correctly and
surrounding it with the right keywords and other information can help it
be noticed. Before you submit a video, make sure it’s optimized.
