An Effective Video SEO Strategy in Three Phases

An Effective Video SEO
Strategy in Three Phases
cantaloupe.tv An Effective Video SEO Strategy in Three Phases
What will a good video SEO strategy do for me?
The obvious answer is that it increases the chance your videos are found on the web, and therefore increases the number of people that watch your videos; however, implementing a sound video SEO strategy will also impact your overall website's search engine ranking, generating additional traffic and creating more opportunities for your organization.
Not only are you more likely to show up in the search engines, but when you do, your listings will be more powerful. Research shows that searchers pay more attention to search results with video, even if they are further down the list. (Figure 1) Compared to text-only results, video drives more clicks and elicits higher engagement.
Google traditional search Google universal search
Figure 1:
Comparison of two heat maps. (Colors represent where searchers look most.)
Eyes concentrated only on top 3 spots Video thumbnail draws eyes further down the page and to video description.
Page 2An Effective Video SEO Strategy in Three Phases
What is video SEO?
1When it comes to video SEO, there are two basic types to be aware of :
Website Video SEO This type of video SEO refers to search engines indexing and ranking video con-tent that appears on your website. The primary motive of website video SEO is to lead people back to your website.
Video Sharing SEO This refers to having your videos discovered on video aggregation and social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. By focusing on this type of SEO you are aiming for views rather than visits to your website.
This paper discusses both types with a heavy emphasis on website video SEO. More specifically, the tech-niques discussed here are tested for Google's web search and video search engines, but applying these techniques will also improve your chances of showing up on other popular search engines like Yahoo! and Microsoft Bing.
SEO for Flash-enabled Video
Since Flash-enabled video is the preferred choice for putting video on the web (it's used by YouTube, Google, and Hulu, to name a few), this paper considers SEO techniques that improve search for this for-mat of video.
Why use Flash-enabled Video?
Flash-enabled video is the easiest for viewers to access, which is why it's the most popular format for con-tent publishers. This popularity means that most viewers already have the necessary Adobe Flash Player plug-in installed on their web browsers so accessing a video is as simple as clicking play. Furthermore, Flash supports the latest and best video codecs for displaying video on the web including HD format (which includes FLV and H.264 video formats). Flash players are also very versatile, allowing easy embed-ding, sharing, tracking, etc.
1 Presentation by ReelSEO, November 11th, 2008 http://vodpod.com/watch/1211517-reel-seo-website-video-search-engine-optimization-presentation
Page 3An Effective Video SEO Strategy in Three Phases
Dispelling a few myths about Flash-based video...
Myth 1: Flash video players are not search friendlySince search engines cannot read inside a flash player to see video content, most people assume search engines can't index flash-enabled video; however, this is simply not true. Google and other search engines have created tools such as video sitemaps, to identify video and its contents. You need look no further than YouTube to be convinced that flash-enabled video will show up in Google search results.
Myth 2: Google's video search only searches YouTube's flash-based contentNope. Google incorporates flash-video content from many sources into both its native and video search results. It's true that YouTube's ties with Google tend to give it an advantage, but Google has continuously proven its commitment to providing the best search experience, which means indexing as much video content as possible regardless of the source.
Myth 3: You must host the video file on your site for best video SEO resultsMost content publishers host their videos somewhere else. In fact, as video use has grown, a new type of hosting service called a content delivery network has formed to improve the overall delivery of online video. What you should host on your domain i... [download for more]