Video content on the web is growing in popularity faster than any other web-site trend. So if you are an SEO marketer or your company uses SEO you should be working now to optimize your video content. If you have not yet begun doing this you are behind, but do not fret, reading this is a great start.
The multi-million dollar question is: How can I make relevant video content highly accessible to searchers?
Video content in 2010 is similar to text content in the late 1990’s. What I mean by this is video search is still relatively new. This can be both good and bad. The first step is to develop a plan and build a meta package for your video producers. Or better yet use a video production company (like ReelSnap) that does video content SEO in addition to video production. Which ever way you go, your video producer must understand the importance of properly tagging your video content with good meta information. The chances are that whoever handles your video production at this point does not understand this. That is because until a few years ago video production and web marketing were two completely different disciplines. Well guess what… Now they are joined at the hip!
It is important to note that search engines act almost exactly the same as video search engines. Just like SEO for text you have to know where to submit your video content in order to be successful and to avoid making mistakes. Make sure that the video search engine you choose has a relative demographic and that you play by the rules. Granted YouTube accounts for close to 90% of all video views on the net but as more and more sites are using video, it is my belief that you will see more and more business applications and thus, more substantial video search engines. Although video search engines act just like their text counterpart they are still all different so your results will be better when you understand the rules of the particular engine you are using at the time.
Video optimization is still fairly new, in fact, most people are just throwing video out there and not really optimizing. That being said, if you simply apply the same basic principals that most of us have already done with our text content, then you will be crushing your competitors in no time.
Here are some tips that will help you get started, some more difficult than others:
1. Name your video files so that search filters catch them: i.e. video-content-optimization.mov instead of 768568.mov
2. Capitalize on anchor techniques.
3. Optimize the webpage and all of its content where your video resides.
4. Buy or build a platform that allows you to push tons of content. ReelSnap is perfect for this.
5. Include RSS feeds
6. Push your videos with keyword rich descriptions.
7. ABV (Always Be Viral) you should be producing video that has a shot at becoming viral. This is the number one way to really make video content work for you. Use grainy, user generated, funny, scary or unbelievable tactics.
8. Make sure that you brand your video content. Logo in the loading stage, watermark, short brand clip before/after, floating logo and/or ad serve your brand.
9. Optimize your thumbnails for Google search presentation. Think about it, how do you choose which video’s to watch… the thumbnail!
10. Develop backlinks to your video.
11. Create a video site map.
12. Use a video content distribution system (ReelSnap)
13. Use a video tracking technology (ReelSnap)
14. Take a look at your load time. It should be quick, too long and you can lose a visitor. Not to mention that video content search engines don’t like to send people to slow loading video.
15. Use complete phrases in your tags.
16. Make your video content short 2 to 3 minute videos perform much better than longer videos.
17. Piggy back on popular news content but follow the rules. In other words make your content with popular news in mind do not just tag your content with popular news terms.
18. Do not forget the iPod/iPhone revolution. Make sure your video content can play in all formats. This will help in your viral efforts.
Some of these are very simply and some will take a lot of research, time, effort and mostly trial and error. It is costly to outsource your VCO (Video Content Optimization) work but think about just how much work it is. It is not only a full time job but it is a full time job for a very skilled person. If you are not up for the challenge I highly suggest outsourcing this work to a competent third party such as ReelSnap. ReelSnap will not only handle your VCO work but they will build you a custom player with analytics code pre-implemented, they will handle all of your video production needs with your VCO goals in mind, and they will give you all the tools needed to disseminate, distribute, track, and manage your video content.
Friday, March 5, 2010
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